Days of Wine and Roses – from the Cotswolds to The Kensington Hotel – Chapter 7
Friday, September 1…As the days dwindle down to a precious few, it’s really remarkable how slowly time has passed, and how fulfilling each day spent in England has been. From Cornwall to the Cotswolds, there hasn’t been a day that wasn’t fully pleasurable, from the moment we each awoke to the glorious weather, to every view, village, country lane and stile. Lucky us!
On this morning, I was able to meet Old Orchard’s gardener who took such incredible care of its grounds. Mike has been a gardener for some thirty odd years, is self taught, and has a myriad of exquisite landscapes he handles for various clients. Old Orchard was testament to his painstaking care, as a more beautiful garden I have yet to see. Of course, Mike had nothing to do with the grazing sheep in the adjoining field! But every time I see photographs long after returning to the U.S., I’ll remember Mike and Old Orchard and the beauty of flower, fruit, bush and tree – how everything came together to form this truly exquisite English country garden. .
David and I made ourselves sandwiches for lunch, pottered about, and then strolled back to Broadway where we continued the search for “something lavender” for his friends back home. Mid-afternoon, we stopped in the Swan for our half pints of Ubu, and then wended our way to Budgen’s for such items as gooseberry yoghurt…yum!
A restaurant in Broadway called Russell’s was known for its delicious menu, and its side café offered fish and chips, which we decided was necessary fuel for the rest of the day. Along with mushy peas with mint, it was a really tasty early dinner. Need I say we ordered the restaurant’s IPA? We sat outside on benches while the sun shone and children and dogs played around us.
We ambled home along the road between Broadway and Snowshill, stopping in the orchard to pick an apple from the heavily laden tree.
A cloud on this horizon was the chaos of Hurricane Harvey, which was flooding much of Houston, and causing horrific wind damage. We were in constant contact with friends and family back home, and luckily for the most part, they emerged unscathed, as did our homes. The upshot of this for us was whether or not we could get back to Houston the next Tuesday, when we intended to fly home. It didn’t look promising, but we kept in touch with our London hotel The Kensington, and British Airways every few hours just to check on the status of things.
Saturday, September 2…Today would be our last day to really ramble around Broadway, and it was a beautiful day for it. David was finally able to find some lavender products which were made at the Snowshill Lavendar Farm and which were on display at the Cotswolds Trading store, and I checked with a local realtor, as I was getting more and more interested in property in the Cotswolds, and what it would actually cost to live there (big bucks!)
We stopped for lunch at the Broadway Hotel, where David ordered the cauliflower and coriander soup (excellent!) and we both had hamburgers…which sounds a bit of an anomaly, (coals to Newcastle and all that) but so good with Coleman’s Mustard (which we laid on with a shovel…ha!) We always try the IPAs at the pubs and restaurants, and are usually happy with the quality and the taste of each one…Ubu’s being the premier IPA, I think!
The one thing we hadn’t wrapped our taste buds around so far was the Cotswold ice cream, so seeing a vendor’s cart on the street, we stopped for a cone. Cotswold vanilla ice cream is rich and creamy and a tiny bit crunchy, with a certain flavor of its own. I loved it, and appreciated the fact that I only now remembered to check it out…much too good!
We walked down the road to Old Orchard, a little melancholy at the fact that this was probably the last time we’d really be able to take our time and ramble. It was a lovely day, so after David went on into the house, I decided to go for a walk in a different direction, behind Old Orchard and up back lanes lined with fields and old barns and buildings. Everything in the late afternoon looked golden and green.
Sheep dotted the landscape, baa-ing in the distance and there was a gentle breeze. I followed the road to a bridge that was blocked from crossing, so turned another way, ending up outside of another part of Broadway, a little more modern, not quite so picturesque and old. Which was fine.
So back to the house. Runner beans from the veggie garden, picked at the urging of Mike the gardener, were sliced and readied to boil. David and I were determined to have new potatoes with the beans, so we boiled the potatoes, added a little butter, salt and pepper, then sprinkled the remaining watercress atop the dish. David added the remaining Stilton to his. Well, master chefs we are not, but this was great!
We booked Sunday dinner at the Swan, watched an episode of Foyle’s War, and so to bed.
Sunday, September 3…In honor of my dear old dad, David and I decided to have a real Sunday dinner at the Swan, a sort of goodbye celebration.
I’d mentioned to David about the back road into Broadway, and since Steve was tied up and couldn’t drive us over to the inn, we decided to walk to it.
Woof! The weather had changed drastically. As we set out, a cold wind nipped the back of our necks, and a taste of sleet hovered over our heads.
What the previous day had been a pleasurable ramble through bucolic countryside was now a brisk walk to Broadway which seemed to take a little longer than I had remembered! (Lord, I hate being cold!)
By the time we got to the Swan, it was really freezing, made more so by the wind. So a roast beef dinner in the lovely restaurant was just the thing to warm us up (after the usual Ubu IPA!) The dinner was amazing: besides the beef, we had Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower cheese, red cabbage, kale, parsnips, and goose fat roast potatoes. We finished off with sticky toffee pudding. Henry VIII would’ve been proud. Woof!
It was all we could do to pull our jackets on for the walk home, and the weather had not improved. As a matter of fact, the sleet was having a field day, so to speak.
Why I thought it a good idea to take the same (longer) road back to Old Orchard is beyond me, looking back…but we did make it home.
We’d asked Steve to come by for a drink and a nibble later that evening, and we had a lovely farewell get together. How I hated the thought of leaving, but apparently the weather had changed and wasn’t going to change back any time soon, a metaphorical parallel if ever there was one.
Again, we checked with The Kensington hotel to be sure that, if we were unable to fly home on Tuesday, we could stay there as long as was necessary. Then we looked to the British Airways site, and all seemed to be in order. Having done all we could on that score, we had an early night, packing up for the early morning leave-taking.
Monday, September 4…We both rose early as we had to be out of Old Orchard by 10AM – it was being taken over by the new tenants.
We cleaned out the fridge, cleaned up the kitchen, checked all the closets and tried to resecure the door key in the lock box. Of course, we needed the code, and once again, it was buried at the bottom of my luggage.
Always the way. But we found it.
We were to catch the train at Moreton-in-Marsh for Paddington, and Steve picked us up at 9:30 for the quick drive to the town. We really were so lucky in finding Steve – he took super good care of us, knew his way around everything…I can’t speak highly enough of him, and have offered room and board should he ever come to Texas!
So, we caught the train away from our beautiful Cotswolds, and it was on to Paddington. We’d tried to book seats but were unsuccessful…however, we’d no problem getting seats, so don’t know what the problem was re booking.
We disembarked at Paddington, once again on a quest for a restroom. David found out we needed 30 pence for the pleasure of getting inside! Honestly! He mustered up the change, however, and we were both relieved (so to speak).
After all that, we found a taxi and began a rather slow journey to The Kensington. On arrival, the taxi driver tried to inform us about using his taxi, cheap rates, signing up etc. until we finally had to assure him we’d do it all…once we were in the hotel. So we got into the hotel, then had a bit of a struggle with the room clerk (who was very nice) as to our stay.
We wanted to also check British Airways to see if our flight would take off on Tuesday; according to its website, all was in order and we finally decided to give it a rest and just believe it was going to happen. So we cancelled the extra nights we’d booked at The Kensington, and just went with the flow. We were both getting fed up constantly checking and re-checking!
After all this, David and I walked outside to find a restaurant where we could eat lunch. Rocca was perfect: a lovely little Italian restaurant right down the street where we decided to eat our combo lunch/dinner. We shared two orders of a really wonderful bruschetta…I hoped the pesto and garlic didn’t linger too strongly on our clothes!
David ordered Bucatini Pescatore, and I had a terrific Linguine with Roast Chicken. Yum-o!
David wanted to end our English sojourn with drinks in The Kensington’s bar, which was dim and cozy, very library-ish…so adorable. So after a brief rest, packing & unpacking, etc. we met to toast a really memorable time in England, and drink to civilized times and friends. We also had a lively chat about books we’d read and loved. Now how nice a way is that of completing the trip!
The next morning, we rose early to take advantage of The Kensington’s really remarkable breakfast – which was gratis, even though the website said otherwise; then hopped into a taxi kindly flagged down by the concierge, and it was on to Heathrow – no sooner had we gotten there and gone through the usual security etc., than our flight began boarding and we were on our way home.
And so…looking back, from the magical delights of Cornwall to the serene beauty of the Cotswolds, the fairy tale was real…at least, it was real for me. And long live the fairy tale – say I, a big believer in fairy tales….
Carpe diem 