Badger Towers
It had previously been called Beechworth Lawn Hotel, and then the owners discovered they couldn't use the term 'hotel' unless they had a bar. But they didn't want to be just Beechworth Lawn, sounds like a park or something.
Anyway, as you can see, it is a splendid house - one of many such houses in the beautiful town of Cheltenham.
This is a caricature of Peter, a retired university teacher, who runs Badger Towers. He is a most gracious host, eager to please and keen to chat and get to know his guests.
The food - full English breakfast in the morning - was excellent, and the rooms were bright and pleasant, and charmingly decorated - such as this colourful moulding around the ceiling.
And everywhere there were all sorts of badgery things!
The Romantic Road
We heard of the 'Romantic Road' when we were teaching English lessons at the Uni. There is a book that describes two routes out of Cheltenham winding through the Cotswolds villages taking the minor roads and lanes. If you buy the book (available apparently on the Internet or from Tourist Information) it presumably has maps and pictures. We didn't get around to doing that, so we only had a printout of the instructions (with comments and poems) from the free Internet version.
Even so we thought it would be worth giving it a try. We only got ourselves lost a couple of times when we couldn't find signposts or features specifically described in the book. There are two routes: "A Road for Today" is a circuit that goes to the north and east out of Cheltenham; and "A Road for Tomorrow" goes east and south. There are lots of villages where you can stop and get out and explore on foot, or you can just keep driving.
The Pumphouse
This is where the Road for Today starts.
Cheltenham is really called Cheltenham Spa, and (like the city of Bath) has hot springs, and this is where the rich and famous used to come for their baths. The day we called by there was a postcard collectors' fair going on inside.
Then we left Cheltenham and headed out into the beautiful country side. Spring was bursting out everywhere, and the weather was the warmest so far.
And there were places where we could get out and frolic along the public footpaths.
Villages
In the UK, it's very 'trendy' these days to move out of town and live in a village. There are three or four villages around the outskirts of Norwich where the with-it people reside. They go there, apparently, for the peace and quiet, or something like that. The villagers in the Cotswolds must abide by strict rules to keep the place picturesque and tourist-appealing.
As we've discovered before, picturesque doesn't always mean comfortable. Some of the villages with their tiny streets were jam-packed with cars, worse parking problems than here in the city.
And no supermarkets. People who live there really need to have a car to get to work and shop in the more civilized places.
How 'bout this wisteria vine, though, ay?
And blossoms everywhere, falling like snow in the sunshine. Oh to be in England ... and here we are!
So at this little old church in the village of ... oh bother, I forget ... ther church has some interesting gargoyles. Some of them are the usual demons and animals
But others have more human faces, obviously local personalities in various degrees of distress.
Out and about around Cheltenham
We went to church with my friends from 40 years ago in Devon.
David Mardon lived two doors away from us in the vicarage at Cullompton, where his father, Noreen's husband, was the vicar.
Trinity Church in Cheltenham looks like a regular CofE from the outside, but inside there was not a hint of the traditional.
The weather was threatening
and we'd seen plenty of 'the road' and the villages, so we wandered through the town.
And a very pleasant place it is too.
One or two rather odd pieces of art work, like this one.
The minotaur and the hare ... we walked around and around it a few times before we noticed this on the ground.
Then it got just too wet, so we wandered into the Regent Arcade, and took a look at the Wishing Fish Clock ... I think that was what it was called.
At the half-hour (and presumably on the hour too) it played music and the fish blew bubbles all over the place.
The movement of the clock seemed to be governed by these orange balls
Which dropped into the wheel, turned around and came out along another tube. The sun seems to be the hour 'hand' and the other hand points to the minutes of course.
Then there was the inevitable problem of where to find dinner on a wet Sunday evening. Most places in England still close on Sunday - earlier than usual, if not all day. We were reduced once again to pub food.
Not wanting to risk one of their tough-meat meals, Peter went for a big hot dog thing. Wow! That IS big.
Back Home again
Despite the odd shower, the weather was warm, and getting warmer. By the time we got back to Norfolk the outdoors thermometer built into our car was telling us it was 23 degree - positively summery.
Many of the fields we passed were bright, bright yellow - so bright that it almost hurt to look at them.
Noreen told us it was rapeseed flowers - I guess she would know. And it's not as easy as you'd expect to get a decent photo of it!
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