Today, thanks to the wiggly girl in the bunk above me, I had no difficulty getting up at the crack of dawn to be the first in line for the one working shower. In fact, it was only 6:20 a.m. when I emerged from the hostel, and nothing was open, let alone the free breakfast in the pub below. (Park Hill people - somebody tell Gina I was up that early!!)
So I took a nice walk, taking pictures of a few Jane-Austen-related places and enjoying Bath without the distraction of anyone else in sight. I wandered back for breakfast and then headed down to meet my tour bus. Today's tour was of the Cotswolds, and unlike yesterday's Stonehenge tour with 16 people, there were only four people. A nice lady from Colorado who was celebrating her 61st birthday, and a couple from California here for a wedding as well.
The weather was spectacular, and the little villages we visited looked like a fairy tale. There were cute little stone cottages with stone roofs, surrounded by flowers and lush green grass, babbling brooks with swans grooming their signets (baby swans), and country churches that looked like cathedrals thanks to the 15th-century wool trade.
We were in a town called Upper Slaughter (so named for the Old English world for "muddy place," not for anything violent or bloody), when the woman from California pointed out a bench by the little river and asked our tour guide, Charles, who put such benches in public spots like this. He explained that most of them were memorials to family members who liked the spots. I told them that I saw a bench like that when I was walking through the Botanical Gardens on Sunday. I told them what it said, to the best of my memory: "In memory of Aunt Mildred Such-and-Such, who loved to look at this spot from the window of her flat in Brock Street."
Charles looked at me with wide-open eyes and said, "that was my aunt. I came up with that wording. She lived there and loved to look out at the Botanical Gardens, so we decided to dedicate a bench to her there when she died."
He and I kept exclaiming in amazement that I had focused on that particular bench, remembered it so clearly, and then happened to mention it to the very person who wrote the message on it!
So I took a nice walk, taking pictures of a few Jane-Austen-related places and enjoying Bath without the distraction of anyone else in sight. I wandered back for breakfast and then headed down to meet my tour bus. Today's tour was of the Cotswolds, and unlike yesterday's Stonehenge tour with 16 people, there were only four people. A nice lady from Colorado who was celebrating her 61st birthday, and a couple from California here for a wedding as well.
The weather was spectacular, and the little villages we visited looked like a fairy tale. There were cute little stone cottages with stone roofs, surrounded by flowers and lush green grass, babbling brooks with swans grooming their signets (baby swans), and country churches that looked like cathedrals thanks to the 15th-century wool trade.
We were in a town called Upper Slaughter (so named for the Old English world for "muddy place," not for anything violent or bloody), when the woman from California pointed out a bench by the little river and asked our tour guide, Charles, who put such benches in public spots like this. He explained that most of them were memorials to family members who liked the spots. I told them that I saw a bench like that when I was walking through the Botanical Gardens on Sunday. I told them what it said, to the best of my memory: "In memory of Aunt Mildred Such-and-Such, who loved to look at this spot from the window of her flat in Brock Street."
Charles looked at me with wide-open eyes and said, "that was my aunt. I came up with that wording. She lived there and loved to look out at the Botanical Gardens, so we decided to dedicate a bench to her there when she died."
He and I kept exclaiming in amazement that I had focused on that particular bench, remembered it so clearly, and then happened to mention it to the very person who wrote the message on it!
4 comments:
What a lovely description of the day, I could feel the silence and serenity of your morning walk and envision the the stillness of the day. It seems that you were meant to have that time to yourself, chances are you wouldn't have noticed the little bench let alone taken the time to read it. I was however disappointed that you didn't see any hobbits or fairies peeking at you- be sure to keep your eyes open!
I will let Gina know!
Wow! That is crazy! That is not just a coincidence!!!
Reading your description of the village was so vivid I felt if I closed my eyes I could see the cottages and hear the babbling brook.
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