We have visited many Country House hostels in the Cotswolds in England and trust that the following will help in your hunt for a luxury hotel in the Cotswolds which is a beautiful part of England with numerous old English market towns and hamlets.

Broadway is a tiny town in the Cotswolds whose high st has a number of antique and gift shops and homes built of Cotswold stone. The Lygon Arms can be discovered in the high st and is one of many personality Country House Hotels in walking distance to Broadway in the Cotswolds in Britain. The cafe has a Michelin star and there are spa facilities. You can be guaranteed of a hearty welcome with blazing log fires in the winter months. This is indeed a 5 star hotel in the Cotswolds.

Chipping Camden is a tiny town in the Cotswolds again with a wonderful high st where you’ll find The Cotswold House Hotel is a fine luxury hotel in the Cotswolds in England offering service of the most extreme standard with exquisite food served in both the eaterie and restaurant. This Country House Hotel has been designed within in a modern theme but full of character with no expense spared.

Lower massacre is a small Cotswold town with the trout filled river Eye running thru it. Lower massacre manor is in the centre of the hamlet next to the church. It is one of 2 Country House hostels in this Cotswolds village in this tranquil part of England. Personal service of the best standard is provided. Enjoy afternoon tea in front of a blazing log fire in winter or on the front lawn in summer. Beautifully decorated and furnished Lower massacre manor is a luxury hotel close to the Cotswolds city of stow on the Wold here in England.

Please do not hesitate to telephone us on 01562 631682 for further advice about a luxury hotel in the Cotswolds.

Do you love to see the world? Want to see some of the best places in the world? Visit famouswonders.com to get an idea of where to go for your next vacation. Make sure to also check out The Tower Bridge.

Is it a giant mole problem? … Is it a Teletubby invasion?… keep guessing, or just read on. It’s much more / less exciting.

25 tonnes of gravel delivered to our main yard in the Cotswolds. Well, we don’t want our customers getting wet feet or falling over or having a mediocre visiting experience while browsing the MASCo garden yard, do we? It’s amazing how a bit, or rather a lot, of gravel can put a smile on your face on a dark wet wintery afternoon. Good old gravel!

SALE ENDS 14 DECEMBER

Victorian wood craftsmanship at its best, but our fine antique bookcases need new homes so that we can create space in our Cotswold showroom for our period fireplace collection, original bathroomware, and oak flooring.

MASCo’s autumn antique pine bookcase sale

All items listed in this sale are on display at our Cotswold showrooms: please contact 0044 (0)1285 760886 or masco@mascosalvage.com.

Irish pitch pine bookcase with built-in storage cupboard

Was £7,400 + VAT  Now £6,900 + VAT

Height 110” x 144”Long x 20.25” Deep

Traditional yellow pine, bow-fronted Irish bookcase circa 1820

Was £4,950 + VAT Now £4,450 + VAT

Height 96” x 70”Long x 18” Deep

Inverted glazed painted pine bookcase circa 1900

Was £5,900 + VAT  Now £5,400 + VAT

 Height 110” x 77.25”Long x 20.25” Deep

All items listed in this sale are on display at our Cotswold showrooms: please contact 0044 (0)1285 760886 or masco@mascosalvage.com.

Arts and Crafts alive and well in the Cotswolds

Good clients, Mary and Antony Haynes, walked into the MASCo yard one month ago and said, “We want a gazebo exactly the same as the William Morris one at Kelmscott Manor“.

Straight forward enough, really!

So, thanks to Mike Mitchell and Neil Gardiner, the job was completed within one month of planning consent using all traditional materials supplied and sourced by MASCo.

Destination information

We have a refuse collection service here that is more complicated than string theory.

The basic idea is Cotswold District Council ‘recycles’ (I put it in quotes because there have been a few stories about how the recyclable material is merely shipped off to China in container ships where small children bury the aforementioned material in landfills with tiny buckets and spades) everything…except plastic.

So, you have a green bin for food and garden waste (organic material) which is collected weekly and then a black bin (non-recyclable stuff) which is collected fortnightly along with black boxes (glass and newspapers) and a blue bag (cardboard). Clear?

The reason I am writing this garbage (oh yeah! I still’s got it…) is that I hate bin day. In fact, I hate bins. I hate the whole disgusting operation. I like dumps, though. Dumps are great. Fully of crazy stuff and crazy people throwing crazy stuff out and then seeing some other crazy person’s crazy stuff and then putting it in their crazy cars and driving back to their crazy houses (maybe overused the word crazy a touch…). But bin day sucks…because:

1. I hate lugging the big wheelie bins down the drive and round the front of the house because they’re heavy and they smell. The green wheelie bin has grass cuttings and food waste and I try not to look in there because it’s a nasty, seething, moving fugue of maggots and fruit flies. Also, because the local moggies use our garden as a litter tray (I smite them), we lob those in there as well (not the cats – obviously – but given half a chance…). I cleaned it out a while back because it smelt like the pit of Gomorrah.  I didn’t have bleach, so I had to use a reckless mixture of Windolene, Flash and Toilet Duck; I’m lucky I didn’t create some kind of chemical explosive. When I poured this detrious down the drain, I thought DS was going to start swearing like Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction – the smell was that bad. I nearly barfed.
2. Our bin men are arseholes. If I were to put just a tiny little bit too much rubbish in our black wheelie bin (as we do: we have a baby still in nappies) then instead of lobbing everything into the garbage truck they will take the time to take the black bag out of the bin, write a label telling me I overfilled it and stick it on the black bin bag. This makes me so mad that I want to – one day – sit inside the wheelie bin wearing a Scream mask,  leap out at them and give them a coronary on a dark winter’s morning. The sons of whores. So, I have to climb on top of the bin – like a lunatic – and jump up and down on it to get as much rubbish in as possible.
3. I am not a ninja. Because of the aforementioned capacity challenged nature of our wheelie bins, I sometimes have to wait until the dead of night and creep around our neighbours bins like a demented inversion-theory paparazzi and put our overflow into their bins. I can’t believe that I have been reduced to this.

What I want is a chute that goes to a big bin (and I don’t care if it’s on wheels or not) that everything goes into. I pay council tax, they can sort it out – why do I have to be Stig of the Dump?

Very busy this morning writing articles for the web plus the Twittering/Tweeting of the such for my clients once uploaded.  Could have done with a far better night’s sleep, though it doesn’t seem to have halted the flow of creative juices, so no harm done there, I just feel a little like a zombie, that’s all.

The weather here is lovely today – have had sunshine gazing on my office window all morning, though with the newly organised office and desk situ, it’s meant that the lovely new blind needs lowering lest I be blinded.

Griffin Mill

Gather has recently expanded its retail unit at Griffin Mill. We now have an expanded range of furniture including wardrobes, chairs, tables and dressers. Please come and visit us!

Something that slowly dawned upon me, as I gazed at the green fields from my office window, was that if I don’t do some form of exercise I will turn into a rotund country gent with rosy cheeks who breaks into a sweat just by flicking the pages of Cotswold Life.

Oh, and Cotswold life is a glossy, self-congratulatory lifestyle magazine about living in the Cotswolds and how simply splendid that is. It is designed borrowing the palette of Mark 1 Land Rover interiors and then Photoshopping their photos within an inch, of their grainy, soft-focus lives. They then treat the photos with a faux painterly effect that makes me want to delete all my filters as soon as I humanly can. Think: urbane rustic. Or: cowshit on an Audi. I will (badly, I imagine) attempt to emulate a Costwold Life article:

Lower Slaughter: Every year in Lower Slaughter, Felicity Singden-Smith-Beauforteunse, organises the annual village fete and pig dressing competition, Sod’s Sowstyle. ‘It’s terribly difficult after dropping Tilly off at polo, and Milly off at pony club and Gilly off at the marmalade making society to find the time to do it – but I simply had to after I heard that Cotswold Life was going to be there,’ said Felicity. Tickets can be purchased at the church, please bring bring proof of Audi ownership and some Hunter wellies.

You get the idea – but back on subject, keeping fit in La Campagne is trickier than you think. I thought I’d be striding across the countryside, thwacking aside shrubs as I consulted my OS pathfinder map as to where the next cosy, country pub would be. Not that easy, it turns out.

Summertime is great, I can whip out the mountain bike or my (frowned upon) road bike any evening in the week and coast along country lanes, dust motes in the air, hot-air balloonists waving at me (this actually happened to me) and I almost reminisce about the moment – it can be so perfect.

But…cycling used to be my commute, I used to actually go somewhere, whereas cycling just to keep fit feels a bit…I dunno, odd. I know, obviously, that keeping fit in itself is the purpose; and that is always important to me. But doing a big circuit and then passing through picture-perfect village after village feels like Groundhog Day.

This is why exercising in the middle of nowhere is difficult, and these are the options that you have:

1. Cycling. As I said, great in summertime. But all the roads have a 60mph limit and, boy, do people use that limit. There is nothing quite as frightening as being on a single track road and a Landie rocks past you at 60mph. In winter, it is just miserable – dark, cold, wet and muddy. So you have to light yourself up like a christmas tree and hope to not get killed; like Tron with muck.
2. Running. I like running, but the hills around here are bloody murder. Running should be slightly pleasurable, but pulling my skinny Irish arse up these hills is putting me right off.
3. Walking. I know that it is said that a 20min walk is comparable to a 20min run – but come on, that is surely total bunkum? I think I’d have to walk for, like, 2 hours and I just don’t have the time.
4. Gym. The nearest gym is in Swindon and that makes it doubly worse. Firstly, I don’t like Swindon, who does? Secondly, I don’t like gyms – I feel like one of the babies in the Matrix, burning my energy in some big machine.
5. Exercise Videos. Honestly, me? Exercise video? I’d rather take the engine out of the car and live like the Flintstones.

The end of all this is that I run. It’s the least hassle, has the best return (fitness wise) and is relatively weather independent.

I just don’t do enough of it.

With another 2,000 words hammered out today, I’m taking a short break to send all our love to Kat in her new role as a Fresher at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester where she’s taking a BSc (Hons) in Equine Management. We are very proud and tremendously envious of her having a place at this classy college in the heavenly Cotswolds.

Kat, have a great time, play hard and work hard and come out smelling of roses, as you always do, and make the world your oyster.

Every man and his dog (and I use that phrase completely literally) has been trying to convince me, since I moved to the middle of nowhere, to get a dog. They’re great companions, they say, you discover the countryside like you never have before, they add. They also cite that they make great playmates for our children.

Let me tackle the dog issue once and for all and address these points and a few others that I can think of that are pertinent:

1. Great companions. I have a wife, two children, a brother, lots of friends, Facebook, twittter, skype and email. Why would I want a dog? You can’t have a chat with them (well, you can, but that way lies madness). You can’t play multiplayer with them and as far as I know no dog has gone beyond the rank of private in Call of Duty 4. You can go to pub with them, but if you’re using lower life forms to justify drinking alone then you have other issues besides the need for companionship.
2. Discover the country side. This is undeniably true. But I, personally, don’t want to run the risk of my pooch straying onto some deranged, hermit, inbred farmers barn and getting the twin barrels of a (probably erratically maintained) shotgun in may face just because my dog fancied sniffing the bottom of another dog or peeing on previously unpeed on post. You know, get a map.
3. Playmates for children. That’s my job. If I have to rely upon an animal – an animal that has teeth for grinding up meat and bone – to babysit my children then I need to reorganize my childcare arrangements.
4. Responsibility. I don’t need the hassle of either organsing kennels or palming my mutt on someone else because I fancy popping to Paris for a weekend.
5. Poo. If I owned a dog I would feel a responsibilty to pick up their poo so that other people needn’t use their shoes for the same purpose. But I am not prepared to do that. I have spent years changing nappies and dealing with the poo of my children and I am never going to do it for a dog. I have this picture in my head, a picture of an alien survey ship looking down on the world and one of the aliens saying: ‘That’s what I was saying! The bipeds follow the quadrupeds and pick up their stools, so they must be the lower life form, or a subservient class. But I have tried to communicate with the quadrupeds and have gotten nowhere…this planet blows, let’s go somewhere else…’

I am not against dogs. Dogs are cool, they make tremendous working animals (which Is when, I think, they are secretly happiest) and some breeds are exceptionally beautiful animals. But you know what? I have an Xbox Live membership, I don’t need a dog.

When we lived in London, I never really noticed bugs apart from the ubiquitous wasps, the occasional spider and an invasion of Pharoah Ants . Since moving to the middle of nowhere I have noticed that there are a lot more insects. I am not a fan of insects, they give me the heebies, so having a lot of them about is a bit of a bore. They are roughly split into 6 catagories:

1. Bees. I like bees, they do shit. They make honey, they’re kind of furry, so a bit cuddly. They generally go about their business, collecting nectar and co-existing with other animals and insects in a benign way. They’re happy to live in houses. You have to really piss a bee off to get it to sting you. I see bees in the garden and I think: ummm, English summer, Pimms on the lawn, the sound of willow hitting cricket balls – all that Vicar of Dibley stuff.
2. Wasps. Wasps are crap. They’re like the ASBOs of the insect world. It’s all beer, fighting and anti-social behavior. Having lunch? They’ll try and eat your sandwich. Fancy a beer? So does a wasp. Wine? They want a sip. They don’t do anything! (before the dog-on-a-string brigade starts giving me the whole ‘but they’re an important part of ecology, natures garbage collectors…’ : I don’t care, okay?) They’re bored, so they just want to cause aggro. Where do they build their homes? The most annoying places they can find. They will also sting you, just for a laugh, just to show off to their waspy mates. Wasps should be eradicated with chemicals or we should set a small army of little boys with magnifying glasses on them.
3. Spiders. The spiders out here are massive (now wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute, my Antipodean friends. I know what you’re about to say: ‘That’s not a Spider! This is a spider! Our spiders are as big as dogs and have iPods and Facebook pages…’ I know, but by English standards these spiders are whoppers). I don’t mind spiders, I see them as bug killers and fly catchers and that can only be a good thing. Picking a spider up out of the bath and relocating it outside is a fun thing to do. But some of them of about the size of my hand and that’s not cool.
4. Woodice. Woodlice are not technically insects, they’re crustaceans (the sad truth is that I looked that up. It’s true, living in the middle of nowhere turns you into a moron). But they seem to thrive in Gloucestershire and the second it starts raining they suddenly appear, trundling along, going about their business. What is their business? I dunno. They wander over to somewhere, stop and think: ‘now what the hell did I come over here for? I can’t remember…I know! I’ll go back exactly the way I came…’ and then back they trundle. They meet their maker in 4 distinct ways: 1.They get stepped on. It’s a hard world (literally, as we have wooden floors) and they’re small. Deal. 2. They flip themselves over and can’t right themselves and lose the will to live. ‘I’ll just try it, once, just to see if I can do it…yeaaahhhy…oh oh, little help over here…hey! Guys!’ 3. DS squashes them for shits-and-giggles. 4. They just die. That sucks. They just die for no reason, how harsh is that?
5. Assorted critters. We occasionally get these big-ass beetles that wander into our house, I don’t know what they’re called, but I don’t like them. Oh no. We also had a grass snake once, which was very exciting. I thought DS was going to have a cardiac arrest.
6. Ants. We have a few red ants on our disaster of a lawn. We have some black ants, but there is so much food encrusted on DDs high chair and the floor underneath that the ants don’t come anymore because I think they need to lose weight. Or they have a full pantry.

That’s it really. I didn’t include flies because flies are so crap that they don’t merit a mention and fruit flies are the eternal after thought of the insect world.

My feelings on insects, generally, can be summarised in one word: RAID.

Hey I went on another trip! This was also one of our field trips with the Uni.

We left on Saturday morning, and I had to get up early again, although not as early as when we went to Wales. We had to be at the bus stop at 7:30, so leaving the apartment at 7:10. Sucky, but it wasn’t leave at 5:50 at least.

First stop: Oxford. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited to go to Oxford, but that was before I knew what was all there. On the way in we drove past things like, Bill Clinton’s college (as well as Chelsea’s), JRR Tolkien’s college and CS Lewis’ college. And about 72 British Prime Ministers. Then we went on a tour, ok now start the pictures!

Pictures: Oxford, Cotswolds, Bath, Stonehenge! Oh My!

The first few pictures, well I forgot what they are. But the first one, the round one, is where graduations from Oxford happen.

Ok, that dingy looking building, with the dark doors? That is called New College (there are 39 different colleges within Oxford Uni).  It’s built sort of like a mini-castle. Back when it was founded, back in the 1300s there are feuds between the towns people and the students, and between the colleges, so they built a fortress for the students to keep them safe. Also, in this college, a scene of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was filmed! That scene where the fake Professor Moody turns Malfoy into a ferret. We didn’t go in, but some other kids did and I saw pictures of the tree. Very cool, but I am a Harry nerd.

Then some more random pictures around Oxford of stuff I may or may not have known what it was on Saturday…

Then there’s one of a Cathedral-looking thing over a wall. This is called Christ Church College. I don’t remember anything else about it other than in that Cathedral-looking building is where the Great Hall was filmed! Again, Harry Potter

Then there’s that sweet round building through the fence. It’s called the Radcliffe Camera. It’s a library or something. I don’t really remember, I was distracted. You see, at 11:30 we, being Abbey and myself, were supposed to meet Grant, our friend Grant from North Central who is studying at Oxford this term. Or year. He hasn’t decided yet.  And it was 11:25, so I was looking all over for him. Before we found him though, our guide took us into …. some library. It started with a B. I think. Anyway, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, that screaming book scene in the restricted section? Yep, filmed in there. Waaaay cool. That’s that odd square building that there’s a really bad pic of. We were standing in like the court yard and I couldn’t get far enough away to get a proper picture.

Next we went up the tower of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin! Then a managed to not put up a picture of the outside. But we walked up those spiral stairs (Dumbledore’s Office! Not really, I’m just feeling very Harry right now) to the top to look out over Oxford. There’s Abbey and Grant and meee!

For lunch, Grant took us to The Eagle and Child. This is where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien used to come! Unless it was busy and then they went across the street; impatient men! Lunch was delicious! I had this tuna melt, it had peppers and mushrooms and tuna (duh) open-faced on a baguette with cheddar on top. YUM. And chips of course. Chips being fries. And a salad with some odd yummy vinaigrette. Unfortunately, we had to eat in kind of a hurry because we had to get back to the bus, but it was still very tasty and we weren’t VERY last back to the bus, just almost.

Then we went onto the Cotswold region to some villages. I had even less of an idea about this than I did Oxford! Our guide told us that Cotswold basically means “the sheep pen on the limestone plateau.”  Which I thought was funny. All of the buildings are made out of this limestone. And now the Cotswold region is part of the National Trust, basically one steop below a national park.  You can live there and work there but not build new buildings. But you can however convert old buildings into new business.  Because of all of this, the main industry is tourism.  Burford was our first stop; that’s that cute little church. The bucket that said “brollies” was in that church, and I loved it. “The Cotswold Arms.” No idea what it is, but the side of the building was pretty. We didn’t get to do much else; we needed to go on a battery hunt for Abbey’s camera.

Burton on the Water was the next town, and the first picture is of those mushroom-looking rocks. I forgot their name, but farmers used to put boards across them and then grain on top to keep the critters from getting it. We walked around, took pictures of the river. And fish… apparently.

The last Cotswold village for the day is nameless. Well not to the people who live there, but I don’t know what it was called. But it had a fun little church. As most of the towns do. And I liked the feather in the cobweb. And the telephone booth. The last picture of the day is of the sun. We had a long bus ride to our hotel (ok, only like an hour) and I got bored. I only showed you one of the like 20 I took.

We spent the night in a hotel with a TV! Ok, what hotel doesn’t have tv, but my room doesn’t have one! We watched the second half of Back to the Future, a few NCIS (my favorite!), some Law and Order… I don’t really know what all we watched, but like 5 and a half hours of tv. It was a welcome resting break after our long day!

Sunday!

Our first city was Bath.

Wait, backtrack. Breakfast. When I walked into the dining room for breakfast, I was really excited. Cereal! Croissants! Mini Muffins! Cheese! Fruit! And… a coffee machine. I was very excited about the prospect of free coffee. The machine was really cool; it had buttons for black, white, latte, cappuccino, mocha, etc. I decided on a mocha and was reallllly happy. Anytime I can get chocolate into my breakfast is a good time.  Well the coffee sucked. Absolutely horrible, and I certainly don’t consider myself a coffee connoisseur in any way shape or form. And it was even masked by chocolatey goodness. Well it SHOULD have been masked by chocolately goodness, but it was so bad I could tell and was bad and that’s saything something. But I was tired, so I just downed it. (Which says something about its temperature as well…)  I had two different kinds from opposite sides of the room; one chocolate filled and one not. And they were both old. And gross. I was not doing well; the bananas were too green for me; and the apples were green and I like red. The orange looked a little scary, but I took one anyway (it’s sitting on my desk, I’m still afraid of it.) BUT even after all of this, the mini chocolate muffin was good. So I had another. And the cheese was good. I should have gotten more. And I stole a mini box of Special K for the road.

Ok, now on to Bath. You must say “BAHth” or you sound silly. Baaaaath sounds like a sheep. And as a Midwesterner, I sound enough like a sheep as it is with out trying. Enough phonetics, this city is gorgeous. It was foggy and hazy when we got there which only made it prettier, except of course, on film. Or digital pixels, whatever. That’s what the first few pictures are of, hazy pretty-ness. Then there’s a picture of a cool bridge; of course it has a name and a story except it was 9 in the morning and the bad coffee didn’t really wake me up.

That giant pretty curch is the Bath Abbey. A+ for originality. Again, I forgot everything about it, so thanks to Google: BathAbbey.org. Again with the originality! Anyway: “Bath Abbey is an active Christian Church situated at the heart of the city. Founded in 1499, it stands on the site of an earlier Norman Cathedral and the original Abbey Church built in the 8th Century.”

The next are of a castle wall looking thing. That’s the technical term. It’s part of the original Medieval walls!

The blue door? Jane Austen’s house! And the ladies all dolled up in the next pic? People working at the Jane Austen museum/heritage site thing. Which isn’t actually at her house, but whatever.

The next building that looks like it’s a circle. It is. Well half of one anyway. It’s called the Royal Crescent. And I missed most of the info about. OH. I remember some. Sheep used to graze in front of it, down below that wall. You don’t sheep pooing on your door step, duh. But anyway, that wall is called the haha wall- people would fall off of it. Ha ha! Get it? Good. It must have been fly-your-hot-air-balloon day. We saw four in the like 15 minutes we were there. I decided against taking a picture of the scantily clad woman floating above us though. That would not fly in the states.

Hahahaha. “Fly” I’m witty and I don’t even know it!

Moving on. Those are my friends! Rebekah, Rachael, me and Abbey. We’re all wearing purple. It was a good color choice.

The next building is the Circus. It looks like the Royal Crescent, but it’s not. It’s a few blocks away. If you can call circular/half circular buildings that are more like parks “blocks” away.  The Circus is a complete circle. Only almost I guess, it’s in three parts so you can get inside. Picture of two doors; #8 on the right. Nicolas Cage’s house. Yeah, I creeped on it. Oh well. The other single door with the circle plaque above it? That’s a fire insurance plaque. If you didn’t have the one with the right company, they wouldn’t put your fire out. They had to make sure that you were paying your dues! Apparently there are some similar in Boston and such from back in the day.

Then there are pretty plants. Dunno, some cool red climbing thingy.

Free time! We went to the Roman Baths. Rather pricey, but it was fun. The first few are of the Bath. The next is of a big… sculpture thing. The sign shows what it would have looked like if all the pieces were there. Not sure how they know that…

Most of these I can’t really give good descriptions of. “Funny head thing,” “pottery,” and “mosaic.” Pretty sure you could have figured that out on your own…

After Bath, we went back into the Cotswolds to Lacock. Harry Potter timeeee! Lacock Abbey was the site for scenes from both Sorcerer’s stone and Chamber of Secrets. The part where Snape finds Harry, Ron and Hermione in the corridor and tells them to go outside or it will look like they’re “…. up to something.” YAY! Also, there was a room that was used for the room that the Mirror of Erised is in.  Only until it’s moved to the dungeons to guard the Stone, of course. There was also another class room, McGonagall’s I think, but I could be wrong.  The Abbey and the grounds were beautiful!

Then I found a big tree, so I stood in it. Very necessary part of the trip.

Lacock was also used in Half Blood Prince in the scenes where Dumbledore and Harry go to Slughorn’s house to recruit him back to Hogwarts. I didn’t remember what it looked like, so I took a lot of pictures and will compare them to the movie when I get it on DVD. 

Last stop: Stonehenge! I had heard from a lot of people that it’s not nearly as impressive as they expected. And well, they were right. BUT I still enjoyed it. I feel like it’s one of those places you have to go if only to say that you have gone. It sure is big though. Haha.

Well, I’m seriously tired. If you couldn’t tell, my descriptions got less and less vivid. I didn’t do Stonehenge justice.

But my bed is calling my name. Loud and clear… Night all.

PS. I figured out how to put CAPTIONS on the pictures. How exciting is that!?

Since moving to the middle of nowhere we spend a considerable amount of time driving. Run out of milk? Drive. Go to the park? Drive. Go for an ice cream? Drive. Doctors? Drive. Cinema? Drive. Pub? Well, we do have local boozers, but I am so sick of them that if I step into them again I’ll shoot myself in the neck.

When I first learned to drive I loved it. I loved the gear changes, parking, car washes, oil changes – everything. I drove like a career chauffeur: smoothly, safely and considerately. But since moving to the middle of nowhere I now drive like shit. I forget to indicate, I probably drive too fast and our cars look like they have just crossed the Serengeti…twice.

The reasons for my fall from grace are simple:

1. I forget to indicate because for the most part there is no one to indicate to. So indicating feels like a form of madness, like talking to oneself, and I have to keep that shit in check or I’ll end up with some crazy facial hair and an anti-social hobby.
2. I probably drive too fast because I spend so much time in the car that I just want to get to where I am going as fast as I can so I can spend less time in the car. I want to spend less time in the car because our kids have turned the inside of the Golf into a biohazard with a combination of rice cakes, raisins and carrot sticks. Having our kids in the back is like having two drunken barbarians throwing food around and demanding entertainment. Also, we should clean out the car more but I have to admit that it is low on our list of priorities.
3. Our cars look terrible because the Golf has been panel beaten using immovable objects of scenery by DW and the Lupo looks like shit because…it’s a Lupo and it didn’t look great coming off the production line, let alone after being spanked around country lanes for a couple of years. Secondly, we very rarely wash the cars because in winter they just get so dirty, so quickly. What’s the point? Again, priorities.

When I go back to London and drive, I slip straight into city driving. Aggressive maneuvering, ninja parking and timing the lights. I also got that weird thing back that when I see a space in London I automatically think: I should park there, that’s a sweet spot…even if it is ten miles away from where I want to be.

I sort of get that out here but have to remind myself that everything is ten miles from where I want to be.

The novelty of laughing at the names of English villages will never wear off I think. Today we hopped in our Commonwheels share car to take my parents, recently arrived from Australia, around the Cotswolds. This sign was one of the best of the day:

We have been part of a car sharing scheme and have really only used it three or four times since January, mainly for when our family has come over and we have wanted to see a bit of the English countryside. Our bicycles are more than sufficient for everyday life—including the weekly food shop—but having access to a car is sometimes a good thing.

If you are a car addict (or just need to use one every now and then) I highly recommend investigating car share schemes. The way it works is that you pay a small registration fee and then book a car online. The car sits at an agreed location in your community and each car share scheme member has a pass card that allows you to gain access to the car. The keys are in the glove compartment. All bills arrive online.

In the UK you have ones such as Commonwheels (that we use), National Car Share, Zip Car, Street Car.

There is also Liftshare, for those who would just like to share a ride with someone who is going their way.

スローン・スクエアを南下、エレガントなアンティーク・ストアやアート・ギャラリーの並ぶピムリコ・ロードにある、Daylesford Organic Cafe（デイルズフォード・オーガニック・カフェ）。デイルズフォード・オーガニックは、コッツウォルズ地方に農場と本店がある、オーガニック食料品店。コッツウォルズにある農園をはじめ、フランス・プロバンス地方にあるワイナリー等、自社所有の土地で生産・加工された製品を主に扱う。コッツウォルズにあるファームショップの他、ロンドンではセルフリッジズやハーヴェイ・ニコルズに出店、ノッティング・ヒル（カフェ／ストア／レストラン）とピムリコ・ロード（カフェ／ストア）にも店舗を構える。ピムリコ・ロードのカフェの向かいにはガーデニング・フラワーショップもある。

外のテーブルは、近所に住む有閑マダムや上品な装いの女性、エレガントな老夫婦、仕立ての良さそうなスーツの男性が、ワインを片手に軽食をつついたり、午後のお茶を楽しんだりしている。エンジェルあたりのカフェにたむろしている人々とは全く別世界の人種だ。白や明るいベージュで仕上げた明るい店内は、地下1階・地上2階に分かれ、新鮮な肉類、ジャム、野菜等、農場直送のオーガニック食品で溢れている。入口のデリカウンターでは、パスタサラダや焼き菓子類が並び、買い物客の食欲を刺激する。しかし値段は、オーガニックだけあって高い。注文したチェダーチーズとトマトのサンドイッチで£7.95、直径5cm程度のイチジクの2口大のケーキでも£2.50する。でもお味の方は、値段負けしない美味しさだったので満足。

肉類やデリ食品もお高いので、手頃なオーガニックの牛乳と卵を購入した。生物分解性の詰め替え用プラスチックパックに入っている牛乳は、なかなか洒落たデザイン。エコロジーにも配慮した、優等生的姿勢である。美味しくてヘルシーな食べ物がいっぱいの素敵な店だけれど、しょせん庶民の手の届かないロンドン西部の富裕層のお店。常連は無理でも、たまにカフェでお茶でもして、豊かな気持ちになろう。

Go down to the south from Sloane Square and turn on the left on Pimlico Road, you will find Daylesford Organic Cafe, after going through classy antique stores and art galleries. Daylesford Organic, based in Cotswolds,  is an organic grocery store specialising in everything organic from their farms, estate, creamery, bakery and their own kitchen. Other than the Farmshop in Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, there are stores in Notting Hill (store/cafe/restaurant) and Pimlico Road (store/cafe), as well as Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London. They also have the garden and flower shop across the cafe on Pimlico Road.

Outside in the cafe area, ladies in expensive outfits, an elegant old couple, and a gentleman in nice tailored suits were enjoying a charcuterie platter with a glass of wine, or a cup of tea with cakes – it is completely different kinds of people from ones hanging around some bars in Hoxton. The three-floored extensive store, decorated in white and light beige, was filled with fresh organic meats, vegetables and fruits, and organic products directly from their farms. A variety of dazzling salads, pastries and cakes was there to lure a shopper at the entrance. But you have to pay for these goodies and the price was high –  modest Cheddar cheese, tomato and chutney sandwich cost £7.95 and two-bites size tiny pastry with fig was £2.50. However, the cost worth it.

The products sold in the stores are normally costing the earth, so we just bought eggs and milk pouches. The milk in a biodegradable bags are elegant, ecological, and well designed. Impressive and mesmerizing store with beautiful foods – but unfortunately the grocery is only for privileged few.

We had ana amazing day last Sunday at The Cirencester Polo. So many people came to see us at our stand and we ended up

Our stand at The Cirencester Polo

measuring up a number of Gentlemen for shirts and trousers there and then at our stand!

The response to a local Tailor supporting a local event was fantastic and it was such a pleasure to receive so many warm comments and organise appointments with so many new people.

We will certainly be doing more shows over the coming months so keep an eye on our event calender which will be online at www.barringtonayre.co.uk very soon.

The new range of John Smedley knitwear is also coming out soon so please visit http://www.barringtonayre.co.uk/page24.htm 

We look forward to seeing you soon

Cirencester Polo Sept 09Awarding a bespoke shirt prize to The Chairman of Cirencester Polo

Today, we took Darling Son and Darling Daughter (now known, always, as DS and DD) to a soft play area in Stroud called Go Bananas. It was a lovely, sunny, crisp autumn day today, so going to a subterranean, piss smelling kid-pit felt a little bit of a shame…but it was a friend’s, daughter’s birthday so we had to go – and besides, DS loves chucking himself about in soft play.

DS was a bit hesitant at first (no such fear with DD, who’d chuck herself off Beachy Head for a rice cake…)but he eventually got into it. But Jeeee-sus, lugging my frame up and down the parabolic twists and turns of this lunatic’s playground practically did me in. Plus- plus! – the bloody wood man turned up and dumped 1/2 a ton of wood on our drive this morning and because we don’t don’t own a wheelbarrow (because, like, why the hell would I want one?) I had to lug the logs into the house in a recycling box like a demented sherpa.

We eventually had to bail because the kids were so whacked that they were randomly lashing out at anyone within swiping distance and growling ominously. Winding our way up through Rodborough Common, shafts of sunlight created by the trees lighting our way, we rumbled over cattle grids and drove through Minchinhampton Common. This is common land, like proper – not the needle strewn cottaging arenas you get in London – so if you own some cows and have nowhere to graze them, you can take them here.

Just a quick aside here: why the fuck would you buy a herd of cows if you didn’t have a farm? Why? That’s just bloody barmy. I can understand buying a cow (as if) and then suddenly it gets a bit big for the back garden so you need some extra grazing – but, a herd?

The drive back was beautiful and it’s days like this that I do wonder if we should stay here. But it’s not properly winter yet.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying most about The Cotswolds is the public footpaths. They are everywhere, taking you from village to village often through farmers’ fields. They were created from ancient traditional walking paths which according to English law must remain open to the public if it can be proven they have been used for a long time. Below is a photo of what we found yesterday while walking near Saintbury. Mmmmm…

Dewdrop - an original painting by Cary Charles - visit www.carycharles.com to see more.

Around 1985-7, I often felt compelled to write into the early hours of morning. ‘Penko’s Journey’ arrived as a series of vivid impressions and the central character’s consciousness evolved on exposure to the waters of enchanted Lake Chenara. The name ’Chenara’ just arrived and was used for sessions and a healing centre I co-directed.

I was often asked about its meaning. I only knew that my intuition insisted that it embodied what my work was about — personal transformation, moving consciousness beyond limited perceptions etc. It was pure intuition — it ‘felt right’.

For over two decades, the name ‘Chenara’ mystified me. Then, on 09/09/09, I was compelled to Google ’Chenara’. I found some people of various races were named Chenara. Other links related to archaeology—something I have never studied.

Chenara appeared alongside the ancient and probably Canaanite word Chinnereth—a harp shaped musical instrument; the lyre. Chinnereth appears to have shortened in translation to Greek or Latin to Chenara. It was a fortified city which indeed stood very near to a harp shaped body of water referred to both as a lake and a sea.

My Chenara could have been a person, an animal, a mountain etc. Instead, it was an enchanted lake which triggered personal growth.

Imagine my amazement when I learned that the name Nazara also appeared to be a shortening in similar texts—its other form probably being Nazareth. I can honestly say I have never identified myself as a Christian. I focus upon the connection between self and the creative universe, rather than any doctrine which may be distorted for personal or political purposes.

Chenara or Chinnereth was also known as the Lake of Gennesaret and the Sea of Tiberius . . . and the Sea of Galilee. So the place where a religious figure is written to have ‘walked upon water’, fed masses with seven loaves and risen after death to appear to disciples shares the name of the profound consciousness evolving work I was doing, and I didn’t even know it. As I would have avoided such a connotation to prevent any perceived religious bias in my work, this really amazes me. I had never come across this obscure name before, and for me the ‘coincidence’ conveys that we are all connected to something fundamental and creative—not just Jung’s collective unconscious, but also a connected unconscious. Proof positive of how creative and all-knowing the unconscious is.

I just wonder if a meaning will surface for the name I gave to the mountain in the story . . . But interestingly, Galilee also had a mountain . . .  Maybe Penko’s Journey is meant to be published after all.

A little while ago we took a trip to the Cotswolds to meet with Richard at Marling & Evans. When we source cloth we like to find UK mills with real heritage and this place has got it by the bucketful. We spent a fruitful afternoon looking through the stockbooks and sourced a great Saxony Tweed and a show-stopping Indigo Check cotton for our Harringtons here. On site they also have an interesting museum of the history of weaving and some original looms – we took a few snaps on the day. The Marling & Evans cloth has been shaped into the 2 Harringtons which are in stock now.

Not your everyday household appliance

What's the collective noun for shuttles?

Once the workhorse of the British weaving industry, the Dobcross Loom

Good little runner, low mileage

A welcome break from East London

Dual branding on the inside

Marta went on an Over Sixties Club outing today to Moreton-in-Marsh and Bourton-on-the-Water while I was at work in the office, but I’m not bitter! I had a very productive day, and was extremely pleased to find somewhere to park at half the cost I’m currently paying with greater flexibility! I’ve been looking for ages for a new wallet (as my current one is falling apart and I like a particular type) and Marta came home with one for me, and it was just what I wanted – I think she’ll have to go on outings more often!

Way home: Outside Chipping Campden, Cotswolds, UK

(c) Stefan Ferreira / www.cthechange.com