Weekend Walks

I thought I'd share a picture of this charming herd of cows who were intent on watching us as we walked around the beautiful village of Haselor...

I hope you are enjoying your weekend too.

Martin

A walk in the snow..

Well today is what you can officially call a 'snow day'. It is far too dangerous to go to work so it's simply a day to bask in the wonders of winter.

It started snowing yesterday at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and it has not stopped since.

So having phoned work and decided to have a walk to see the extent of the blizzards. Instead of waffling on I'll just post the photos and a small sentence here and there.


Ok, so first call was my grandparents house...

The park as we go by..

Coming up to their house for a nice cup of tea..

Off towards the high street now after a nice warm drink..

The very wintery and very beautiful St.Nicholas church.

Perfect postcard scene...

Fields on the way up to the allotment. Very white..

The allotment site..

A nice amount of untouched snow on the way up...

Believe it or not this is our allotment. it looks like the brassica nets have collapsed under the weight of the snow.. sigh!

Time to go home again for another cup of tea..

Thanks for reading as always. Enjoy your very own 'Snow Day'.

Martin

Walking in a winter plotterland..

It was quite a surreal experience this morning when taking my brother to work. We were driving through icy white fields and the hedgerows and trees were like something you could only imagine  reading about in a book - it was spectacular.

Anyway, I haven't mentioned it as of yet but we're on a bit of a health kick at the moment which includes sensible eating and more exercise. Well, I've managed the sensible eating bit so far but I hadn't done much excercise, so seeing as I had a day off I thought I'd make the most of the winters weather and take a walk up to the plot. Now, the allotment is about a 10 minute walk from our house but seeing as we always have something heavy to take there or lots of plants etc. it is always likely that we take the car. It was nice to feel the crispness of the air and it really was a pleasant walk taking in the wonderful views over the cow fields as I went by. I took these photos on my iPhone and they really don't do the wonderful sight any justice. I am sure if you have taken a walk in any part of the UK today then you may be able to relate to what I am trying to describe...

Anyway I had come with a bag of compost material so I slung those in to one of the compost bins. Here are a couple of pictures of the plot and the allotment site on this beautiful Winter's day.

As I have previously mentioned the shed is still covered in tarpaulin ready for erection as soon as the weather changes. It is a truly depressing sight whatever the weather...

Pick your own frozen veg. Do you think there could be a market for that?

This short little visit to the plot has made my day. I think I'll promise to try walking more often this year...

Martin

Glamping

Glamping is camping for glamourous people. You get dressed up in your best frock, buy a pop up tent and set off for the campsite. Ok, we bought the pop up tent but the night's sleep was far from glamorous. I had Amy whining all night, that the tent was leaking and she was cold. It was only spitting, so I said she was being silly. (By the way, I was snuggled up nice and warm and was also completly dry). I can only appologise for dismissing her concerns during the night when I saw how waterlogged her half of the tent was this morning. We are in need of some waterproofing spray before we go again in a few weeks time. Not comfortable to  be sleeping in the wet. (Sorry!)

I don't have many memories of camping, other than in my back garden when I was a kid. So the whole experience on Wednesday and Thursday was very new and refreshing. All the simple things were such good fun.

We played games such as tennis, catch, football and boules..

What tremendous skill...

Getting back to the real basics regards eating and drinking was nice. Boiling the kettle on the gas cooker, and preparing dinner and breakfast in the same way too! The whistling of the kettle was lovely...

We had chilli con carne with pasta for tea and a fry up for breakfast. Divine!

The tent it self looked good, despite the rain problem later in the night.

The campsite was really cute. It was easy to find, and the location was stunning. The pitch was well shielded from the wind, we were surrounded by tall trees and bushes. The campsite was lovely and quiet. It was only us, an elderly couple and the members of staff on the whole site.

There were lots of walks to do. The majority of fields in the area were planted with either rape seed, poppies or broad beans. Some had a combination of all of them where seeds had obviously spread from previous or neighbouring crops...

We walked through a broad bean field which had a public footpath in the middle of it...

It looked like they were up for a good harvest anyway.

There was plenty of reading to do in the evening too. We bough almost every self-sufficient book/magazine we came across when we did a spot of shopping in Bourton itself...

We have definately extended our home library. We bought some great magazines, and some books about chickens, bees and home brew. We also bought some more books when we popped in to the town of Brodway on the way back home. Ooops!

There were no lights on the campsite so during the night it was nice and dark and you could see all of the stars. Due to the brillaint location and landscape we got a good view of the evening's sun set....

We've only been back a day, and we already can't wait to go back!

We'd like to reveal, that we will be running a blog contest from Monday, which will run for 3 weeks. If you would like to enter the competition for a chance to win a £20 'Our Good Life' hamper including seeds, tools and other great resources then please visit us soon. How to enter will be posted at 5.30pm on Monday!

Good Luck if you decide to enter!!

We hope you have had a good weekend.

Martin

The Bridges of Bourton

I mentioned in yesterday's post that we were going away overnight to visit 'The Venice of the Cotswolds'. Bourton on the Water is only 30 miles from where we live, but there is so much to see and do. In fact, we've only been back home for just over an hour, and we have already planned to go back in three weeks time for a few more days in order to fit in everything that we missed out this time.

If you haven't been to Bourton, then you really should go. The buildings are made of the most georgeous Cotswold Stone and it really is the most pituresque town.

The reason it gets the name 'The Venice of the Cotswolds' is due to the beautiful river that runs through the middle of the town. The only way to get from one side of the river to the other, is via a gorgeous series of stone bridges. I absolutely love the river in Bourton. We stumbled upon Bourton by accident last year and spent an hour or so there and we couldn't believe how beautiful the place was, and this sort of place needs at least  a day's devotion to even cover the surface of the town. The water is so clear, and the quantity of different species of wild waterfowl is amazing. You can also see the trout swimming in the water, and apparently the Christmas tree is placed in the middle of the river each year.

This picture shows a) Amy posing b) how clear the water is c) how beautiful the houses are and d)how you get from one side of the town to the other...

If you look closely you can just about make out the trout...

Just a tip, for if you do go to Bourton. Go for a walk by the riverside at 9am. It gives you ample amount of time to walk along the river (and even time to dip your toes in or just feed the ducks if your prefer), also it's not too long before all the shops open, but because the shops don't open until 10am, you will be some of the only people out and about. The atmosphere was so tranquil and relaxing.

Here are a collection of photos of the river and those bridges..

We saw some horses crossing the river this morning, it was quite a sight. We just about managed to capture some photos...



I decided to paddle my feet in the water this morning, and we soon attracted a group of ducks. What an idealic location this spot is..

The number of ducks was getting bigger and bigger, so we gave in and bought some duck food. Here is Amy lobbing the food at the ducks(and pigeons, and starlings, and blue tits and crows)

There are so many birds around, not only in Birldand (one of Bourton's main attractions) but on the river. So many, that for the first time in ages I saw one of these signs. BEWARE OF THE DUCKS!

The BEWARE OF THE DUCKS sign is the red triangle in the background, the sign in the foreground is for the Model Village, another one of Bourton's attractions. We visited the Model Village, which was quite expensive for the short amount of time it takes to view it, but nonetheless it was very pretty and very cleverly done too.

Look at the minature bridge..

The Church was the centerpiece of the exhibit..

I thought, it wouldn't be suitable for us to make a blog post without a hint of grow your own or do it yourself. Here is the minmal contribution (but still a contribution). The minature village was equipped with a small vegetable plot at the back of somebody's house..

There was an observation... bridge. (You guessed it) Therefore, you could view the whole minature village from a more aerial perspective...

The picture of the river and bridge in the minature village shows how accurate it really was. But for further comparison here is a picture of the town's war memorial..

Minature version....

Even all of the really small details encapsulated in the model village.

The next tourist attraction was definately up our street. It was called 'The Living Green' it was a lovely show garden with a shop which was 100% self supporting with it's water, energy etc. It had lots of nice bits and bobs in there, and when we get paid in a few weeks and revisit we will definately pop back in. It even had a grass roof! Amazing!

It even sold some nice beeswax candles..

If we hadn't just made our own, I definately would have bought some.

Bourton can definately rival anywhere for cream teas... Delicious!!

We had such an enjoyable time, and like I have said we are going again in three weeks time to fit in the other attractions and nearby attractions such as Cotswold Wildlife Park, The Bourton Motor Museum and a chilli and herb farm we had never heard of. The campsite itself was really nice, and the camping and walking write up will appear on the blog tomorrow morning.

I've just notcied how long this post is, so if you've read it all I can only appologise.

Have a great day and thanks for reading,

Martin

Cheeky Cows

Just been for a walk in Haselor.

We stumbled across these cows in a field. They certainly were very curious...

Amy is not the world's biggest fan of cows, but I think they are great.

Would love to have a house big enough for a couple of Dexters in the future...

Enjoy the rest of your evening!

Martin

Evening walk in Bidford Upon Avon

Well, Amy is ever so keen to get on the road since she passed her test and got her car. After going all over the place yesterday we decided to go to the park at Bidford Upon Avon for a walk by the pituresque river. Bidford Upon Avon is a nice riverside town which is sort of parked inbetween Evesham and Stratford-Upon-Avon.

This is the great view from where we parked..

The town's allotments were adjacent to us on the opposite bank..



After a while we found a fishing peg to have a rest on. Most of the fishing pegs were either half in the water or the path was impassable due to a rath of stinging nettles and weeds. This one looked sturdy and had a clear path thankfully..

This field of peas was a nice sight..

We walked to the next field after the peas which contained oil seed rape and then decided to turn back as we were going to my grandma's house for 7.30. Surprisingly we didn't see any waterfowl on the walk up to the rape field except for a solitary drake but we actually saw lots of waterfowl on the way back...

We met this family of ducks about half way along our path back to the car..

It made us laugh because all 3 of them followed us back to the car. I think they were expecting us to throw some bread in or something...

Then we saw a majestic Swan by the bridge as we approached the car..

Then look who turned up...

Those three ducks did make us laugh.. They were very keen to follow our every movement at one point we were walking up and down the bank and they were following our every move!

To finish off I just want to share some pictures of the iconic bridge that really make this place stunning, a fantastic scene with the gorgeous church in the background..

The two arches on the right of the bridge no longer have the river flowing through them and they are mostly dry but it has created a small rockpool like area. Was interesting to see the interesting creatures in and around the water.. Amy was the first one over the stepping stones to investigate..

Another nice walk in the summery weather. I hear that a lot of places up and down the country have had frost and it has been killing off the plants etc. nothing here yet touch wood, but I am checking the weather forecasts regularly as there are lot of fragile/vulnerable plants outside now.

Will post an update on the growing tomorrow morning..

Martin