I can't believe I slept till 6:00! I managed to cram everything back into my bags and took a walk. I went across Banbury Street this time. I'd glimpsed a wall on the west side and I wanted to see what was on the other side. Can't be done. The area was all single family detached, but there was a fence or a hedge between every house blocking any view or access to the other side. I know there are a lot of trees, I don't know why I can't go there.
I got back to my room and discovered I had a comfy chair. I'll have to be more careful where I throw my stuff next hotel.
Another delightful breakfast and we grabbed a cab for the rental car agency. We dropped Barbara's bag at Merton College. We stopped in yesterday to make sure it would be alright. At first he told her he didn't have room due to a large event this weekend but when she told him that we'd be hiking for two weeks, he changed his mind. I'm sure he thought we'd be backpacking with our luggage.
We handed the rental car clerk our drivers licenses and she told us that mine was expired. (I had renewed it until 2010 and they sent me a sticker for the license. When I changed my address, they failed to update the expiration date.) Bummer, now I won't be able to drive on the wrong side of the road.
 | Barbara did remarkably well with the Skoda Fabia. She had a mantra about "I'm in the middle", since the driver's side is always toward the middle of the road. The roundabouts were just too much though, yield to traffic on the right, turn left, go right, pick an exit, turn left, stay left. |
The driver did better than the navigator. We were using Google Maps directions and they didn't always correspond to reality. We never saw one of the roads we were supposed to turn on but by the time we returned to the intersection, I had deduced other clues from the atlas and it was easy to find. Thank god the car came with an atlas. We only had a couple more minor wrong turns before we parked at the Painswick Hotel. The car may remain there for awhile. |
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 | We'd been upgraded (really?) from the Garden Suite to Martin's favorite room in the main building. It is a lovely large room with outrageous views, but we have nearly-adjoining twin beds. It's a good thing Barbara is napping now (16:10) because she may not get much sleep once I start snoring. Maybe the bathtub (yea, a bathtub!) will be a good bed. |
But the room wouldn't be ready for a couple of hours. We were pretty hungry and I'd promised Barbara a large glass of wine for getting us to Painswick in one piece. The first pub we found looked intriguing so we tried it. Again there was no one there (except a table of old folks) and we waited for a waiter. We wound up in the garden among the flowers and artifacts. The chef decided he needed to make a new pot of soup, so waited a bit longer. I ordered a cup of tea and the waitress said, "What? Now?" Then we asked for some more ice water and she brought us a whole pitcher, somewhat exasperated with these foreigner's peculiar ways. I don't think the english drink much besides beer with their meals.
The mushroom soup was exquisite. I think it was just mushrooms, salt, pepper and cream, but it was wonderful. Barbara had a salmon and cucumber sandwich and I had a ploughman's lunch. (Ploughmen, dig my lunch. - Bob Dylan) For the ignorant, a ploughman's lunch includes a nice salad (I'm not sure I can envision a ploughman eating a nice salad), a pickled onion, a pickle (which is a sort of chutney with big chunks of whatever and a sauce that tastes pretty much exactly like A-1), two warm chunks of heavily seeded bread, and big chunks of brie, white cheddar, orange gloucester, and blue stilton. It was so good that I ate all of it. The chef came out and talked to us about cooking and traveling and Painswick. The waitress came out for a smoke and chatted as well. It's delightful to slow down after Oxford.
After driving and wine, Barbara was ready for a nap. I was eager to explore. I found the tourist information - which was open, inside the library - which was closed (so I couldn't use the 2 computers sitting in front of me). There were several booklets of circular hikes around Painswick but for the ordinance maps demanded by all guide books, I'd have to go to the post office. The information lady was extremely helpful and nice. As I left I smelled the most wonderful incense and went back to ask her about it. She began raging about the people in the big houses down below who use every nice day to burn rubbish with the smoke drifting up into the town. Seems I'd hit a nerve. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the smell and would have used the fuel to smoke a chicken. I found the ordinance maps and more at the post office. I had to buy the maps and postcards at one counter, then wait in a short queue to but the stamps at another counter three feet away. An ex-american behind me in line had some advice for good walks. We'll need to increase our daily mileage to make use of the maps.
Barbara is still asleep, dinner isn't for two hours (I hope I can work up an appetite), so I'm sipping tea in the library with two ladies and a girl all reading ancient tomes from the shelves. A blond boy pops in every few minutes kicking a soccer ball and snitching another lump of sugar from the bowl. Maybe I'll try to follow one of the shorter hikes...
22:25
So, I tried a short circular hike but couldn't figure out the starting point so it didn't work out so well. The surprising thing was that I still followed an official "public way". It was just a Gloucester County Commission public way instead of the official Cotswold Way. It was still interesting, it went along postage stamp patio gardens. I wish I'd had the nerve to take a picture of the old woman with her hair in a bun hoeing her vegetables.
 | The paved way emptied into a street with boys playing cricket on the way up and playing with an electric scooter on the way back. Another group of boys were playing football (soccer) in the schoolyard. Why aren't any girls playing outside? I picked up the paved path again which led to a small trail alongside a road with led to a little gate into a tunnel of weeds with small path worn in them. This led to a trail along the edge of a cultivated field and to a paved lane, just wide enough for a car. There were several choices, up or down the lane or off through another field or through another weed tunnel but without the path in the middle. By this time I had figured out that I was definitely not on the right path and I wasn't going to find it and it was an hour till dinner. I was not going to miss the Painswick Hotel dinner included in our exhorbitant room charge. So I backtracked without mishap! |
Once I got back to town I looked for clues to the right starting point and easily found it.
I washed off the sweat and weeds and when I emerged from the bathroom, Barbara had woken up and gone off in search of another loo. She wasn't feeling well but I enticed her with a hot bath and she recuperated enough to attempt dinner.
We were shown to the lounge where we were expected to purchase wine and liquor. They didn't show their dissapointment when we asked for tea. (Who knew they charged us £2.50 for every cup?) They also brought a disgusting chicken liver pate canape and some delicious almonds. We perused the library while we waited. Barbara found an Inspector Morse mystery and I found a very old but undated copy of Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. It was written in 1897 and must have been printed shortly thereafter. It was the English edition with special author notes explaining American ways.
We were actually beginning to get hungry by the time we were led to the dining room (the round part in the hotel pictures). We started with a liquer glass of gaspacho. Delicious and just the right amount. For the main course, Barbara had "wild mushroom and spinach lasagne with parmesan and truffle foam". I had "poached guinea fowl with bubble and squeak, black pudding and bok choi". The bubble was excellent but I didn't care for the squeak. Well, that isn't true, we loved every bite of both dishes.
Dessert was amazing. Iced blackberry parfait with poached fruits for Barbara and cherry panna cotta with peach ice cream for me. I wish it were true that you could make it last longer by taking a picture.
 | Once we determined that we would not allow them to bring any more courses, we set out for a walk. It was too late, after 21:00, for a loop walk so we explored town by street. We found a public way leading past the Quaker meeting house and far beyond. It was a true tunnel through the trees with an ancient stone wall along one side. It was getting dark and was very dark in the tunnel but we were pulled to the end, where we found the old millhouse on the brook. |
We power walked back up the steep way and were panting hard by the time we started climbing the streets. We sat out in the Painswick Hotel garden to cool off before returning to our somewhat stuffy room.
Mileage - a mere 7.9
