A Friendly Spider, Miss Quackers Eats Peas, and Pub Dogs

Tuesday, June 12, 2017

First thing Tuesday morning, the family rushed to the Tube at Marylebone Street Station, hopped off at Paddington Station (yes, as in Paddington Bear) picked up their train tickets to Morton-on-Marsh and stood staring at an ever-changing electronic board among dozens of other commuters eager to discover from which platform their train would depart. They were going to The Cotswolds.

Paddington Station

The Cotswolds is an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), kind of like the US’s National Parks, but most AONBs have people living in them.  The Cotswolds is an area encompassing towns and villages, with houses and buildings of honey-colored stone, green pastures, expansive estates, and sheep. The bucolic landscape and townscapes are what many think of when they think of England’s countryside.

When they finally found the right train, and the right carriage,  they settled into their seats, TwoSon greeted  there by a little spider sitting atop the seat reservation card, dancing and swinging.

“Do you want me to get it?” AJ asked, knowing how he felt about arachnids. 

“No. I’ll just watch him.” This one was small enough for him.  

Elder bush

As they traveled further outside of London, the landscape became more familiar to AJ. The manic traffic, crowded streets and endless buildings melted away to pastures, houses huddled in villages, gentle hills and recognizable flora. 

Butterfly bushes (Buddleia) grew as weeds along the tracks, the yellow-white blooms of elder (Sambucus) dotted hedge rows, a sprinkling of flaming orange poppies adorned fields of wheat. Just like at home, some kind of hawk sat on a fence post. Cow parsley, burdock, mullein, dog rose, locust trees, fireweed, thistle (of course), daisies, brambles blooming white andVirginia creeper crowded the sides of the railways. But it was a little different: there were community gardens, canals, low green hills dotted with sheep and a field wrapped in solar panels. 

At the train station, they met Mr. Nick from The Original Cotswold Travel Company, who had grown up in the Cotswolds and was their tour guide for the day. They piled in his black Toyota and drove off to their first destination, Stow-on-the-Wold, a sheep-made village where St. Edwards Parish Church stood with a spectacularly curious doorway which inspired JRR Tolkien's imagination in writing his book, The Fellowship of the Ring. 

Mr. Nick drove comfortably along the narrow roads. All the buildings were built with the same sand-colored bricks–they didn’t build with anything else in The Cotswolds. Mr. Nick was forthcoming with facts and tales and important information, stopping readily for B to take pictures and make small jaunts among the Cotswold-nesses, with a hearty and happy, “It’s good?!” to greet them back at the car as they took off again. 

For lunch, he chauffeured them to The Fox Inn in Oxfordshire.  They picked a spot in back of the stone-built pub, along a stream and small pond and sipped locally made fruit juices as they waited for their fish and chips, and sausage and mash. A duck came waddling up to their picnic table in the sun, curious as to whether they had been served yet, because it knew something they didn't. 

Then their dishes arrived, laden with beautiful green English peas. 

“Here, Mr. Quackers, have some peas,” B tossed the duck a few green gems, not being a favorite with his. 

“It’s Miss Quakers, can’t you tell? She has subdued, humble colors, except for that pretty periwinkle patch on her sides.”

“Excuse me, Miss Quakers,” B apologized, tossing the hungry duck a few more peas. A small dog at the nearby table watched with eyes eager for the chase, frustrated by a collar and leash. 

As they left, the pub dog (every pub had a dog), a wolf hound mix, big and shaggy, lay down at TwoSon’s feet, pleading for a pet. 

Birds were only second to plants in AJ’s naturalistic passions, and the ones she saw flitting along the trees and gliding in the air were of the greatest interest and one of the highlights of her trip. Jackdaws (Corvus monedula), black, elegant birds with white-grey rings around their eyes and necks, strut and hovered intelligently around the peopled places. Jackdaws don't live in the US. Konrad Lorenz included his extensive experiences with the smart birds in his book, King Solomon’s Ring.  

Magpies, black with a white vest were also among the avian attractions at many of their stops. According to a nursery rhyme, the number of magpies seen at one time is very important.  

Jackdaw

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a funeral

And four for birth

Arlington, Bibury

After lunch, Mr. Nick rushed them to so many beautiful spots that it all started to run together in AJ’s mind. It was trip of absorption; of soaking in the essence of the area, of observation. Very few new thoughts or wonders came to her as the day progressed, and after the trip, not many specifics came to her about the region. It was quaint, beautiful, old and marvelous.

Bourton on the Water

 The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures; and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its mass) our petty methods of commemoration.  On a part of our life’s map there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is all. - The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson

It was too early for the lavender fields of Snowshill, so they contented themselves with poppies, even finding wreaths of them adorning WWI monuments. 

A quick, mile hike through beautiful sheep pastures and wilderness between two villages gave them a more up-close taste of the area. After that, they stopped in at The Noel Arms Hotel Pub (complete with a dog sitting on a stool at the bar) in Chipping Camden for a snack and coffee. 

The tour ended with a long-distance view of Broadway Tower. It had closed to visitors a few hours earlier, so B had to take pictures from a distance. AJ contented herself with investigating plant and animal life of the stone fence hedge while B snapped pictures.

In the train back to the rushing, vibrant London, AJ stared past her reflection through the window to the outside world where light slowly slipped away to darkness and civilization glowed electric in houses, buildings and along streets.