Here we are in Herrestad

Herrestad is the small (6 families) village where Thomas, Susanne and their two girls live, near the city of Vadstena (5 miles.)  Thomas and his brothers, Peter and Stefan, operate a 700 acre farm here, producing grain and eggs (with approx 52000 laying hens.) 

So, we arrived Wednesday morning and met all the Maalstrom's.  Spent a great day.

The weather is perfect and the house is gorgeous.  I've posted many pics of the house and grounds here.  I know Betty will post details, but I wanted to share.

We're way North here.  The sun goes down around 10PM, but it never really gets dark.  Betty said it was totally light around 4:30 in the morning.  Anyway, this is the view from our bedroom window, looking north in the afternoon.

This is the same view at midnight

Cool, huh?

Chalford Hill

Thought you might like to see some pics of the house, the pets, and some of the "local" sites and countryside.  I find that, when I think about England, I picture the big city and crowds.  But when you get here, it's not really like that at all.  And, oh, the roads!
See pics

Chipping Camden

Another claimant for most charming village-- and this one is a real contender.  This house we noticed on our way out of town and had to capture.  Note the for sale sign.  Don't ask-- it will be a minimum of a million pounds!!

A lovely church, old graveyard, a girls' choir singing in the old marketplace (one of their selections - "Shalom Haverim"- really!), even a museum dedicated to the Arts and Crafts Movement (like our house.)  Right outside the museum is this drive-through cart wash.

So, here's the pics

Berkeley Castle

Pronounced "Barkley" (go figure.)  Beautiful old castle and grounds that have been the Berkeley family home for 850 years!  Unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside.  Betty will have to provide descriptions.
Pics

Bath

The Romans came to Bath around 45AD.  It's amazing to wander through the baths and realize that they were built 2000 years ago!  Went on a 2 hour walking tour of the town, then explored the baths.

John - this one's especially for you

See pics

Barnsley House & Gardens

It seems that every village in the Cotswolds claims the title of "most charming" or "most beautiful."  Barnsley is no exception, but the highlight here is Barnsley House, a manor which has been transformed into a pricey hotel.  But, oh, the gardens...  word is Prince Charles was so impressed with the formal garden that he invited the designer to consult on his personal garden.  And the kitchen garden is amazing.  Here's a sample:

View the house and gardens here.  (Remember, you have to sign in to Snapfish, but the account is free.)

Back in The Butcher's Arms

So, yes, we made our way back to the pub--only because I saved it in Garmin as The Butcher's Arms Really!  Wednesday we had a lovely day out in the village of Chipping Camden. We had a nice lunch, visited shops, a museum, the old church, and then headed back south towards home.  But because of a few wrong turns (thanks, Garmin), it took a little longer than we expected.  Because of Garmin's confusion (and mine) we've seen some beautiful pastoral scenery and had a few close encounters with cows, sheep, and vehicles on one-track lanes that don't look wide enough for even one vehicle.

At any rate, we found our way amazingly back to Sheepscombe and the pub where we had a good dinner of sausages, mashed potatoes, and red cabbage (variation on bangers and mash) in a little corner of the pub we'd reserved the other day.  Soon after we got there, the Morris dancers began to arrive--one troupe of men and one of women--already dressed in their costumes.  While we finished our dinner, we watched the dancers strap on their bells and sashes in the forecourt--after they'd gotten their respective pints, of course.

We were served our drinks by the publican's five-year-old daughter Emily, who climbed right up on the bench with us.  She brought our half-pints and pints from the bar: "Look, Daddy, I only spilled a little drop!" Later, she was in the thick of the dancing.

The dancing began as we were finishing dinner and we went outside to watch.  (This was the day after Midsummer's Eve so it was daylight until well after 10 pm.) The lane is so narrow, but people had parked along one side of it.  The dancers danced in the lane, so if a car needed to come through it had to wait until the end of the set. The group was definitely local and we were the exotic color but definitely welcome.

The dancing was ok, not all that exciting, but when the first sprinkles of rain fell, the dancers headed for inside the pub (very tiny!).  We didn't know if the dancing would continue or what would happen next, but they all pushed their way to the bar and one by one the musicians picked up melodeon, recorder, mandolin (who later switched to a banjo), and guitar, and they began to jam.  We watched in delight as they played song after song, then broke off to sing a cappella when one or another was moved to sing a traditional song where everybody knew the words except us.  (Sorry, the size of files limits you to small samples.)

Last verse of this sad sailor's tale:

So we're packed into this tiny little pub with as many as 30 or more people at first.  The guitarist (who had blown out his knees and couldn't dance any more) was our personal guide to what was going on. It was something tourists almost never have the opportunity to experience.  We were so lucky and thoroughly enjoyed every minute.  All we could think about throughout the evening was how much we wanted to share the whole experience with everybody we know--especially you guys. 

It was so hard to leave because as the evening progressed, the music and the singing and the laughter became even freer.  Just a spectacular evening, impossible to describe.

Talking Flowers!

Just for you, Mel.

Sunday, June 19th

Abbreviated version:

Drove to Berkeley Castle, about half an hour from here.  We knew it's pronouced "barkley", but we also learned that our American way of pronouncing it is actually closer to the original.  The Great Vowel Shift, don't you know? (Mel remembers.) The castle is old...not just old, but really, really old! http://www.berkeley-castle.com/index.php  We had a great tour of the castle, about an hour and a half.  We learned that the earlship had disappeared from the family in 1942 (not quite sure how that happened), and Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley are the current owners who live in some part of the castle.

Our claim to fame is that we actually got to meet Mr. Berkeley.  He was coming down the lane in his Audi (not a Bentley, unfortunately) and had to stop to open the gate at the ticket booth.  As we were crossing the lane at that moment, Bob volunteered to close the gate for him after he went through. (We had no idea who he was, of course.) The driver thanked him very much and gave him a hearty, "Well done!" and off he went.  The ticket agent came out to tell us that that was Mr. Berkeley himself.  He did say to enjoy ourselves but didn't invite us to tea.  Oh, well.

The gardens are lovely and I'm sure I must have mentioned that the roses are in full bloom.  Bob has lots of pictures, too many to post here, but he may put up a link.  The castle also has a butterfly house where they raise and host numerous varieties of butterflies. http://www.berkeley-castle.com/butterflyhouse.html  Really interesting.

 It's a small house, sort of like a conservatory full of blooming plants, lots of them tropical for the more exotic species.  We couldn't stay in there very long though because we were dressed for 50-60 degree weather and the temperature inside was really hot and humid--like being back in the South.

We had a Sunday lunch at a pub in the town right next to the castle.  This one was the Malt House http://www.themalthouse.uk.com/

and their Sunday dinner was a buffet with roasts of beef, pork, lamb, and turkey; veggies such as carrots, lightly cooked cabbage, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower; and crispy roasted potatoes all crunchy on the outside. Oh, and Yorkshire pudding and gravy.  We ate at the table on the left.

On the way back toward here later in the afternoon, we stopped at Saul Junction http://www.gloucesterdocks.me.uk/canal/sauljunc.htm

"where the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal crosses the line of the earlier Stroudwater Canal, the only crossing of two independently owned canals in the country." We walked along the canal and took a ride down the canal past the old Cadbury building and the Prince of Wales' granaries. The best part is seeing the narrow boats that ply the canals for holiday trips.



That may look like Bob at the helm, but it's not. This is just a picture I found on Google.

Then we drove back here and I can't remember what we did after that.

But here's a picture of Joan reading and relaxing with Bob the cat today.

That wasn't very abbreviated at all, was it?

Finally Found: The Butcher's Arms

Remember last Sunday while we were in Gloucester for the emergency trip to PC World, a couple told us about THE most authentic English pub in a town called Sheepscombe that we couldn't find? Since then we've tried three more times and gotten lost every time.  The GPS gets into a tizzy and starts sending us in crazy circles, round and round.  So today, we went to a garden nearby, called the Painswick Rococo Garden http://www.rococogarden.org.uk/ .  (I'm sort of starting today backwards, but I'll catch up later.)  We set out about 3:00 pm, knowing that the gardens closed at 5:00 pm.  Just as we got to the car park, the rain (which had been threatening and going off and on through the afternoon) began a deluge.  We sat in the car for a few minutes, hoping for a break.  It did slack off a bit, so we gathered our rainproof (?) jackets around us and headed off. Joan was well-prepared with her waterproof jacket and rain hat and umbrella.  Bob, unfortunately, had left his Tilly at the house--which was where the umbrella was as well.  I pulled up the hood of my rain jacket and off we went to buy tickets and hope the rain was a passing shower.

It wasn't.

Bob managed to snag a big umbrella from the main shop and off we went.  It kept pouring.  We persevered.  After all, we'd paid 5 pounds each to get into the damned garden!  Which was beautiful even in the rain.  There were kitchen gardens with espaliered pear trees on the fences surrounding the various gardens.  The plants were really enjoying the rain.  For us....not so much.  But we kept going.  Found a great maze that we could view from above.  (And, Mel, it actually "said" something: 250--which was the number of years since the founding of the gardens.  Sorry, inside family joke.)  Gorgeous view of the Painswick Valley from a high vantage point.  Finally, we called it quits and made it back to the starting point, returned the umbrella, and I said, "Wait a minute." There was a really cute (very young!) Englishman at the till, and I asked him if he knew where The Butcher's Arm's Pub was.  "Oh, yes!" he said. "Could you direct us there?" I asked.  "Oh, yes," he said.  And he proceeded to give us directions: go left out of the car park, then a quick right, then keep going....and going....and going....  It wasn't actually that far, but it was the same tiny track that we had tried last Sunday and it seemed to go on forever.  Of course, we were driving down a narrow track, barely wide enough for our tiny little Kia--beautiful views across the countryside, cows on either side, stone walls and hedgerows, up and down this narrow track we kept going.

Finally, we found it. A beautiful pub with a car park and picnic tables in front.  Gorgeous hanging baskets and pots all around the outside. 

But when we went in.......yes.  This was the place.  We walked up to the bar and told the two young women behind it, "You don't know how hard we've been searching for this place!" As usual, we gave our wimpy order of a half-pint of ale for me, a half-pint of Perry cider (pears) for Joan, and a WHOLE pint of cider for Bob.  After our trials and tribulations, I felt a great sense of satisfaction.  The bonus was that we saw a notice for Morris dancers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance for next Wednesday, June 22, and we made reservations for dinner for that night.

Only one problem: can we find it again?

Quick post

I really thought I would have more (and longer) posts by now, but we haven't settled into a routine.  We were at a B & B nearby Thursday and Friday nights, then moved into our house yesterday. We got settled, went shopping, had dinner at an Indian restaurant (very good, ate way too much) and pretty much collapsed last night.

This morning we woke up to fairly heavy rain and gusty winds, very chilly.  We had to put the heat on.  We didn't mind it too much and planned to spend the day working with our respective online classes and planning our upcoming week.  But my laptop died suddenly.  Turned out to be the AC adapter, so we googled some sites on Bob's laptop and found a PC World in Gloucester about 20 minutes away.  They were totally helpful and confirmed what we thought and had a compatible adapter.  So now I can access my hard drive.  On the way back we took a a little detour through the back roads (actually, they're ALL back roads and so beautiful), got onto a narrow track through fields and pastures, but we eventually found our way back.  We were in search of an "authentic" English pub called the The Butcher's Arms in a tiny village called Sheepscombe, recommended by an English couple standing in line next to us at PC World.  We're almost  convinced that they were having a bit of fun at the dumb Americans' expense and there is no such place!  Will keep you posted.

I'm roasting half a leg of leg  (make that lamb) tonight, augmented by the rosemary growing on a huge bush in the garden.

More stuff as we get around to it.