September 14, 2019 Bourton-on-the-water

The weather was lovely today – just right for walking. Blue sky with just a touch of high altitude cloud, warm and no wind.
We struck off from Moreton-in-Marsh south westerly through the fields. The route in the book provided to us is basically a joining up of a number of standard walking trails. This particular one is known as The Monarch’s Way, and is said to be the route followed by Charles II after the Battle of Worcester 1651. Going to have to check up on that bit of history. He probably had a horse anyway.

Every now and then we see a group of pheasants along the way. They are pretty shy but we managed one long shot.

The trail goes along hedgerows and crosses active cow pastures awash with all too fresh fertilizer.

A typical field gate, called an FG in our guide book. Took a while to find the glossary with an explanation of what an FG might be.

There are numerous gates to open and close, each one a new mechanical puzzle. There are stiles to clamber over, not as easily as a few years ago.

Vic is having some difficulty with the stiles due to her rib injury and a Bakers cyst. One arm can’t take any weight and one knee doesn’t bend enough for maneuvering over a stile.

History and geography provided a village (Longborough) with a pub (Coach & Horses) located conveniently at lunch time.

Had a pint of bitters and a Ploughman’s Lunch.. Gives you energy to complete the walk.

We arrived at Stow-on-the-Wold, the day’s destination, about 3:30 after a scheduled 12 km, although we added some with side trips. It was harder than 12 km would have been years ago, however a drink at the pub helped.
Being the weekend, there apparently was accomodation problems at Stow, so they arranged to taxi us to a B&B in Bourton-on-the-Water, where we are to spend three nights.

Spent some time inside the Queen’s Head recovering from the walk (recovery for Vic was a gin and tonic) and then some time on the bench outside the pub waiting for the taxi to take us to our B&B.

We did not strictly come out ahead on this, as, nice as it is, it is not up to last night’s standard. It is a full room and bath on the back of a double garage, separated from the main house. The real drawback is that the wifi signal is lousy, so we may not be able to publish pictures. The landlady is working on it, but she is not an electronic technician.
We walked into Bourton-on-the-Water (another couple km) for a meal at one of the pubs. Bourton is indeed ‘on the water’ – there is a small creek spanned by several bridges running through the middle of town.