Spring Bank Holiday

Because The Better Half’s (TBH) birthday falls around that time, we often go out for a short outing during the bank Holiday weekend and this year we went to Broadway. No, not that one, this one is a small town in the Cotswolds with a high street full of antique shops and restaurants offering everything from a full meal to cream tea.

A Typical view of Broadway

The reason TBH wanted to go there was to look for some brand of clothing which is found only in a very few actual shops and she knew there was one there. There is no substitute for trying something on in a shop. With internet shopping, although convenient for many things, you can only try on clothes by the long process of receiving the garment trying it and returning it by post if it does not fit and waiting for the replacement. A process that can take a week or more. So cut out all of the posting back and forth bit and go to a shop. QED We had already had a celebratory meal at TBH’s favourite Italian, Fabio’s and having indulged in a very large and very nice meal we did not need much to eat that day and certainly needed to do a bit of walking to remove the extra calories we had taken on board.

One of Britains useless signposts passed on the way

The weather was not the best for wandering around, because it was not very sunny and the wind seemed to have come directly from the Artic, but we stoically did the tourist thing having first visited the shop and acquired the new clothes desired by TBH.
One of the attractions in the area is Broadway Tower. This is one of those odd towers you find around the British countryside known as a folly. Many were built a long time ago in response to the French Revolution of 1789, although some are much more recent and really are a folly. The original towers were generally declared to be a fashionably foible of the extremely rich in order to prevent the peasants from finding out their real purpose. The idea was that if a revolution broke out in the local area, these towers could be used as a means of rapid communications. By having the towers as high as possible a beacon on the tower could be seen from a long distance. They could then use the tower signal a warning to the other nearby landowners that the feared pitchfork army was on the rampage. They there was never any great risk of revolution, but the towers were built nonetheless and now work well as tourist attractions.

The Broadway Tower

Broadway Tower was completed in 1798 designed by Capability Brown and George William 6th Earl of Coventry with the help of the architect James Wyatt. The view from the top of the tower is quite spectacular, overlooking much of the Cotswolds as it does, but it was so cold, TBH decided to stay in the car whilst I took a very quick look around with my camera at the ready.

There are several things to see inside the tower

I did not go up the tower, since it would have meant that TBH would be sitting alone in a car for a long time on her birthday outing, so I raced over to the tower, took a few shots and raced back. One notable event was that there must have been a wedding nearby because there was a bride and groom all dressed in their wedding gear being photographed by a professional photographer who was using the tower as a background. The poor woman must have been freezing, because she had a low cut wedding dress and nothing over her shoulders or back and the wind was bitter.

 In a field next to the tower were some deer of a kind that I do not recognise. They were obviously domesticated and were grazing in an enclosed field, unlike many deer that are usually free to roam, at least over the large area of a private estate. Looking across the open landscape you can always see bright yellow fields of rape seed, which are grown extensively around our region and no doubt elsewhere in the country. In fact on the journey out and back, you could hardly travel a mile without coming across another yellow field.

Thew view from the ground outside the tower. Plenty of yellow fields.

This made me wonder what happens to all this rape seed. I know that you can buy bottles of rape seed oil for cooking and it is supposed to be better for you than any other kind of cooking oil. In the supermarkets, this kind of oil is very expensive compared to other kinds of cooking oil. This despite the obvious fact that we seem to be growing the stuff in huge quantities judging by the amount of yellow fields we encounter at this time of year. What kind of yield does a farm get per hundred acres? In North Dakota, they were reported to be getting around a hundred gallons of oil per acre. That is not imperial gallons, so under one hundred over here and we may have better farming conditions than ND, which suffers much longer colder winters. I have not found any figures for the UK, but considering that it looks like half the countryside is growing the stuff, what makes the price so darn high?

More yellow on the way home

Anyway, just another little moan to add to my reputation as an old curmudgeon.

Easter and on

We have had a family time over Easter, the Daughter’s family stayed with us for a week. We had good weather, so we were able to do some of the usual local walks and days out.  We had our version of an Easter egg hunt for the Granddaughter. It has been up to Grandad (yours truly) to create a suitable set of clues which are not too hard. But grandchildren grow and she is getting altogether too smart for any ordinary egg hunt. It will need something quite different next Easter. 

One trip out was to Lydiard House and Park, a onetime stately home now open to the public, where we walked around the grounds. Many years ago when I first moved to the area, the interestingly named Lydiard Millicent and Lydiard Tregoze were two small villages near Swindon. Nowadays Swindon is about to engulf the whole area and housing estates are right up against the boundary of this once isolated parkland. The house contains family portraits dating back to Elizabethan times and has its own family church. On this occasion, we did not visit the house. 

On another day, we went to Mouldon Hill park, which is within the boundary of Swindon and only recently created as a public park. 

The River Ray runs through this park which is a tributry of the River Thames. The walks are gentle and there is no sign of any hill, but there is a lake which was teeming with birdlife. 

We saw several types of water fowl, swans, geese, ducks, coots and moorhens. We even saw a crested grebe, but it was too elusive for a decent photo, diving regularly and reappearing in an unexpected part of the lake. 

 Some coots deciding who has breeding rights on the lake 

After a compulsory game of Pooh Sticks on the small bridge across the river, (compulsury by order of the granddaughter that is,) we walked around the open space along the river bank and eventually came across this rather odd stone with a modern plaque. 

The use of English is unusual for something so recent. It would certainly have received severe criticism from the English teachers from my school days. 

An Experience

After the family had returned home things quietened down for a bit until we went for an ‘Experience’. This was one of those things that people can buy you for a present. It is then up to you to arrange a date you can attend. This one was for a falconry kind of experience with owls at the North Somerset Bird of Prey Centre and was The Better Half’s (TBH) Christmas present from a friend of ours. Although it was primarily for TBH, who has always been fascinated by owls, it was made out for both of us and TBH had been able to book it for a time which did not clash with the family’s visit. The venue is at a place not far south of Bristol, about an hour and a half away from us. We had an afternoon event booked and so we arrived early and had lunch at a local garden centre. The meal was not special but sustaining, I suppose you could say.

Once at the bird place, we were each equipped with a leather gauntlet and we were able to hold and stroke various birds and eventually fly one. Well land it really, it flew to us rewarded by a bit of raw chicken. My glove looked as if it had once belonged to Colonel Cody, having an ornamental leather tassel just like the pictures you see of him and other Western movie characters. It was also badly chewed on one side, no doubt by one of the birds. I do not think it was so difficult an experience that one of the participants would have chewed it quite that much.

 

This was the smallest of the owls and although it looks a bit worried here, he was perfectly at home with being passed around and that seemed to be his normal expression.

We were each able to hold five different birds whilst their trainers told everyone what breed they were and something of their characteristics and place in British history. We were told we could pet certain birds but not others who may take exception.

This one did not like being petted but was happy to perch on your glove and be admired

One of the trainers was the best friend of a particular owl and each time he took it from one of the participants, it cooed and snuggled up to him.

This sleepy looking fella is the trainer's friend

 

Altogether our time with the birds took about two hours and was a fascinating experience, I have never been that close to any bird of prey before and it was a really great experience.

All the participants were asked that if they posted anything about the experience on the internet, they would like a mention.  If you are interested, the web address is http://www.nsbopc.co.uk/