Bruce went on-line for a while at the library and the Internet café. Posted blogs, read e-mail, and made our mortgage payment. Who would have dreamed!
This one is for you, Angie: We found Ben and Jerry’s in a store (only one or two flavors) for £4.49 (~$7.50) a pint! At that cost we didn’t even bother to find out whether they were US pints or Imperial (16 oz. vs 20). Or maybe metric. That’s a delicate subject in England at the moment. (Later: It was metric - 500 ml, about 6% more than a US pint, for more than twice the price.)
Then we drove to Woodmancote, a village just north of Cheltenham, where we joined our friends Bob and Phyll Shewan for lunch at the Apple Tree. We first met each other in the US in the late 70s, when Bob and Bruce were working together on the same project, and then they came back to Cheltenham at about the same time we moved there. Phyll was looking especially good, so soon after a mild heart attack. A daily walk to the pub or the coffee shop is part of her rehab régime!
The Apple Tree was easily on a par with the Hobnails in all dimensions. From one perspective it could be called a country pub, as there was an occupied cow pasture on one side of the car park, but on the other side it butted up against gently encroaching suburbia. Lunch included typically good pub food and drink. And dessert, or ‘pudding’ as they call it. Or simply ‘pud.’ We never see what would be called pudding back in the States. The closest it comes is custard, and that is warm and runny and used as a topping.
Then we all walked back to Bob and Phyll’s nearby home. We swapped family stories, looked at albums of their kids’ weddings (two kids, just slightly younger than ours, we each have a daughter named Sarah Elizabeth), and played with their interestingly marked black and white kitten.
Next we drove down to Cheltenham, passed by our old house where we lived from 1980 to 1983, and parked a bit farther down the road. Everything suddenly became so familiar as we walked down Albert Road toward the High Street. Our street looked exactly the same, so we could easily remember our grown daughters as little girls with British accents. “Look, there’s the house where Bumble the dog lived. What were the names of his owners?” (Anne and Mike) “Look, there’s the pillar box.” ‘Pillar box’ is British for the classic cylindrical red mail boxes. This was an especially old one, marked with Queen Victoria’s initials, where we would pose the girls for a series of growth pictures over the years. It was Karin’s destination the very first time we let her cross the street by herself. Oh she was careful, looking in both directions so many times before making her move.
As for the rest of the way into town: some differences, much still the same. Sidewalks (‘pavement’) seemed much cleaner than we remembered. No smashed chips (fries) and very few candy wrappers. Likewise dog poop. Christmas lights (white) being installed along the Prom!
The Cheltenham Literary Festival was still in progress in the Queen’s Garden. The Prime Minister Gordon Brown had been there a few days before, ostensibly to discuss his new book but with the added motivation of burnishing his public image in light of his generally well thought of accomplishments with respect to the economic situation, which seem to have helped pull him out of the doldrums. We wandered briefly through the bookseller’s huge tent. Then we checked out the Queen’s Hotel as a possible location for afternoon drinks or tea on Friday with our former neighbor Sheila Taylor. While there we encountered John and Joyce Everett (see Monday’s blog), who had just come from a talk associated with the festival.
Further walking through the Montpellier district of town led us to the Ha Ha restaurant and wine bar, which struck us as just the right place for our get together with Sheila on Friday.
Dark by then. Back to the car, drove to Ledbury, light supper in the cottage. Aimée and Steve arrived back from London shortly thereafter, brimming with tales of their adventures in the big and bustling city. They scored big on an OAP (Old Age Pensioner!) discount for the most popular play in town, Billy Elliot! (Aimée didn’t actually qualify as an OAP, but they waved her in anyway since she was with Steve.) But we’ll let them tell their story themselves tomorrow.
First, here’s a brief account of the time Aimée, Steve, and Bruce just spent at the regular Wednesday live music evening at the Prince of Wales, across the path from our cottage.
It was fun! We got there just early enough to acquire some of the few remaining seats in the bar area where the musicians were situated. We procured an appropriate complement of brews, and the music started shortly thereafter. All very informal. There must have been a dozen or so musicians, some with guitars, one with an accordion and a fiddle, one with a mandolin, and a few singers. But it didn’t appear that too many of them constituted any sort of organized group, or had perhaps even met each other before tonight. Whichever person or combination of people had the muse would sing or play the next song. Sometimes the others would join in if they were familiar with the music, or if the muse struck them. There was ever more of this as the evening went on and the musicians became more comfortable with each other’s style and technique.
Much of the music was of the folk variety that we would recognize, though we probably had never heard any of the specific songs. One was about fishing. On occasion an older, white haired woman in a tartan skirt who was sitting next to us would offer a typical Scottish lament type of song. (Do the Scots sing happy ones? Yes, they do! Roaming in the gloaming is a happy song.) Her voice was beautiful. She still had it! She clearly knew all the melodies, but strangely she would read all the words from a rather large pile of lyrics that she had brought with her.
Despite whatever effects might have been brought about by the brews, we found our way successfully back to the cottage—a journey of perhaps five feet it was. Chatted briefly with two women who were gazing at our cottage in awe.
Tomorrow is devoted to exploring Cotswold villages and Sudeley Castle. It’s not a trip to England if you don’t see a castle, and life is not complete without seeing the Cotswolds.
Wednesday - October 15
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