5:20 p.m. UK time - Sat., October 22, 2011
Hi friend! How are you? I hope you are well! I feel unusually close to you at this moment because....I FIGURED OUT HOW TO LISTEN TO THE HAWKS LIVE ONLINE!!!! So, it feels like I'm just down the road listening to the same radio program as opposed to thousands of miles away. I don't really think I should admit how much time I spent searching for this radio station - it was more than worth it though...obviously. Go Hawks!!
So two Fridays ago I traveled six hours by train down to the upper southwest part of England to visit a rural development/land use contact I know through a contact in the States. Richard and Susan had kindly invited me to stay at their 17th Century home (so cool huh?!) for the weekend. It is situated in Winchcombe, which is close to Cheltenham in the Cotswolds region. The night I arrived Richard had to give a land use presentation at a local meeting called Friends of Winchcombe. It's a surprisingly large local group formed in the 1950s to protect the character of the town, so since its inception they have basically not been keen on new houses added to the town. The local planning board was recently told they have to accept 100 new houses to accommodate growth, so his angle was to convince them they should be proactive about considering how those 100 new houses should be integrated into the town structure and design instead of complaining about an ugly new development that doesn't fit with the town. The most interesting difference to see from an American perspective - he spoke about climate change and how they needed to keep an awareness of the strong UK carbon emissions reduction policies when creating their plan for the community. Mind you he was speaking to a group of people who were all 65+ years old. Love the lack of denial factor about scientific consensus on this side of the pond! I also love the fact that after this meeting they had a wine social with "nibbles" (that is literally how snacks were labeled in the budgets provided on every other chair at the meeting = adorable). I love the conversation that probably happened in planning for a community meeting - "what type of refreshments should we provide afterward? Alcohol, duh." Are you kidding me?! Brilliant.
The following day we hiked along the Cotswolds Way in sort of a triangle. We started at Stanway, which is the beginning of a huge estate, aptly named...the Stanway Estate :), that was owned by an abbey for 800 years and now the Tracy family has owned it for 500 years as the Earls of Wemyss (I have no clue how this royalty stuff works). Its owners insist upon sustainable agricultural practices by their tenants, which is good since it's situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty. So hiking along one of the bridle paths, we walked straight up through the woods until we emerged onto tilled wheat fields and pasture land stretching for miles. It was so strange to literally open the gate of a farmer's field and walk through right next to his sheep. But that's part of the beauty of UK property law - you cannot restrict people from walking on your rural lands. In England you can designate a path they should stay on, as opposed to Scotland where they can walk anywhere as long as they don't cause any damage, but there is no concept of no trespassing just because it's your property. You would have to apply for special permission from the local authority to be able to actively keep people off your land. Interesting huh? So we tromped through multiple fields until coming to the road that led us to Snowshill. A National Trust manor is located there, meaning the owner deeded what is usually a historical property to a national organization that maintains it for tourism through the support of four million members throughout the UK (myself included). This property included a manor and gardens totaling about 16 acres I think, but the former owner, Charles Wade, never actually lived in the manor. He lived in this tiny little cottage off to the side. He literally purchased the manor around 1920 for the sole purpose of storing thousands of antiques since he was a self-proclaimed collector. His family was very wealthy, so what that translates into: he got to travel all over the world and buy whatever he wanted that struck his fancy. So the house contained 15+ Chinese cabinets with all sorts of knickknacks inside, an entire room dedicated to ancient Samurai suits of armor, a musical instrument room, coats of arms all over the walls, an assortment of old wooden bicycles in the attic, weaving looms, an antique laundry contraption, decorated chests, clocks....you get the point. Amazing amounts of random shhhtuff. Too much time and money on his hands is sort of the thought running through my head the whole time, but it was really interesting to see.
So that was my weekend in the amazingly beautiful Cotswolds. I was so fortunate to get to experience that scenery, have good conversations, sleep on a mattress that felt like a cloud, and eat the most amazing food (Susan is the most UNBELIEVABLE cook - homemade curries, Thai soup, Japanese miso soup...ooh, my stomach was in heaven). If you ever have the opportunity to travel over to the UK and are wondering whether to carve time into your schedule to visit the Cotswold region - DO IT!!! Enchanting is the only way to describe that place. Absolutely enchanting landscape. See it here: https://picasaweb.google.com/100003400901805538894/TheCotswolds?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPvhzrGsvdWRrwE&feat=directlink
Let me preface your viewing by a little disclaimer though....I am a land use and farming nerd, so I may have gotten a little carried away with landscape pictures. oops :) But, fortunately for you, I have included a lot of descriptive captions so maybe it won't just look like the same bit of beautiful hillside and trees and stone houses over and over again.
6:15 p.m. UK time - Sun., October 23, 2011
This morning I woke up at 7:15 a.m. to go to a pub with an outside courtyard fully stocked with picnic tables and a big screen to watch the All Blacks New Zealand rugby team win the Rugby World Cup 2011!!!! They beat the French (yes!!!) 8-7, and while I was engrossed in the game most of the time, the people watching was beyond priceless. The guys with their faces painted black and white shouting incomprehensible noises along with the New Zealand haka before the match, the women who looked like they had taken four hours curling their hair to come watch a rugby match, the older French gentleman who was sporting a navy blue plush velvet coat over his bright daffodil colored hoodie sweatshirt, the French girl who I'm sure had dyed her hair a cranberry color in support of her team (at least I hope that was the case - incredibly unfortunate if that is her normal style choice). What might surprise you though is the relative civility with which all these fans mingled. I thought rugby fans would be the rowdiest (let's pause and appreciate I worked for the Raiders though....stiff competition for that title), but apparently soccer fans are way worse. Someone explained it to me that there is so much violence on the rugby pitch itself that nobody finds it necessary to punch each other out in the stands. Fair enough - but my jaw literally dropped when all of a sudden during halftime I looked over and there was the French girl with the tricolor wig and another with a French flag in the form of a cape taking a picture on the laps of the All Black face-painted guys. Perhaps gender had something to do with it, but still, shockingly civil.
I hope you have a great week and Halloween festivities! They actually celebrate it here (hoorah!!! you know how much I love Halloween), so I'm most likely going with a repeater - Dodgeball. Hope all is well, take care, and I'll write again soon!
Cheers,
B
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