Today I slept in and awoke to the sound of the church bells ringing up the hill. I enjoyed a mug of coffee in my room from the elegantly presented array of teas and coffees and little cheeses and yogurts in the tiniest refrigerator provided by Annie, and headed out to explore Minchinhampton. I had heard last night about cows wandering up on the Common and I thought I’d go investigate. In my mind’s eye, the common would be like the town green in New England towns but instead it was a wide expanse of field with a few trees dotted throughout and and trails criss-crossing it for about two miles. It was a spectacular feeling of openness with no buildings to be seen in the distance except a few at the far edge of the land where the hill started to drop down into the valley. And yes, there were many cows of different patterns and some with calves that were mainly sleeping in the tall grass and chewing warily as people walked by with their dogs. There were even a few highland cows which I learned are kept down the street where I’m staying during the fall and winter and then in late April are released onto the road where they run up the hill through the town square to the Common, knowing just how to get there. They are able to spend the entire summer free-ranging all over the fields together. Because Minchinhampton Common is owned by the National Trust, no street lights are allowed and so there are unfortunate collisions on the surrounding roads with a few cows every year since there are no fences between the Common and the roads. The lack of street lights makes such a wide open space even more exhilarating with no artificial light. It feels the way it must have five hundred years ago.

I learned all of this from the first man I met walking his dog, who happened to be the first man of five I spoke with today who had a beard. He cheerfully gave me the all clear and a heads up not to approach the cows since there might be a calf hidden in the grass. A few minutes later I asked a man whose name I learned later was Baron, if he recommended a destination point beyond the Common and he told me about a new cafe inside of a church in the village of Amberley and told me he had taken his wife there just yesterday and they had passed a jeweler and her name was Christine….I wasn’t sure where he was going with this information, but sensed that he had wanted to give his wife something from the jewelry shop. I thanked him for all his words of wisdom on getting there and the history of the Common and walked into the great flat field feeling euphoric to be surrounded by so much view ahead. Eventually I came to another set of cows and a main road that needed to be crossed and I headed towards the two trees in the distance where the road dropped off towards Amberley and the church cafe. I ambled towards Amberley with a spring in my step avoiding cow patties (but appreciating them for their fertilizing function of this vast grassland under the clouds).

Once I emerged on a road that led down the hill, I saw a small monument that was another war memorial to soldiers lost in WWI and WWII. As with so many of these memorials, there was a wreath of silk red poppies propped on the side. I heard chickens from behind me and saw a man come out with a spade from his yard. I asked him how many chickens he had and he said he had three but used to have four and one had died of natural causes recently. He said that remarkably none of the foxes living on the Common had tried to get them. He asked where I was from and we had a brief laugh over something I can’t remember and he said how wonderful it was to live on the Common during the pandemic because everyone could exercise and interact safely. He also said it was a great area to raise kids because they were outside so much and flying kites and running around playing games together. I learned later that his name was Jemal.

I walked down the hill and found the church with the cafe inside. It was the first time I have ever been in a church sanctuary that had tables on the side and gardening magazines and a window for ordering coffee, soups, etc. (photos below).

I headed up behind the church on what said “public footpath” and ended up back on the Common where I was headed back to the Airbnb to reset for the rest of the day. When I was back in the town square I decided to sit and do a sketch at an outside table at Henry’s Cafe and get something to drink but as I was sitting there, Baron (the second bearded man I met on the Common) came down the hill towards the cafe. It was as if we were old friends having had a nice chat a couple of hours before. I told him that I did end up going to the church cafe he had recommended and he asked if he could buy me a coffee. He was getting a cappuccino for his wife who was working in their allotment. We sat together and I told him how fun it was to see kids flying kites on the Common and he took out his phone and started scrolling trying to find special designed kites that he had seen during the pandemic. As he was scrolling he passed through some photos of cats, so of course I commented on this and he launched into the story of this one cat Benjy who had decided not to live with them and be a street cat. I had it show him pictures of my two cats and again we were bonding in a way that rarely seems to happen to me in the States, probably because the pace of life is so fast around Boston and everyone is always looking down on their phones. (below is a photo of Baron). But then again, we were both looking down at our phones!

I headed back to the Airbnb on Wells Road and noticed that behind the house was a hill with sheep. Annie’s husband was there working in their garden and I said hello and he said that Annie wanted to show me the garden, so I went into the most gorgeous back yard I could imagine and waited for Annie. She told me how they had purchased the land only eight years ago and built the garden from scratch leveling the hill and putting in her pottery studio and doing the hardscaping of a firepit and pond feature. The combination of wildflower areas with more cultivated plants as well as her area of fruit trees and vegetable garden all worked so in harmony together. The photos really tell the story. You’ll also notice two dogs - Cody who was obsessed with me throwing him a drool covered tennis ball and Cosmo, a little Boston Terrier with some eye blindness and an urge to eat dirt. Both very loveable.

I learned that Annie is a sculpture and also has been a film and stage actress. If you’re interested in seeing more of her work you can find it here: https://anniemcgill.com Having a studio integrated with a garden, especially one so extraordinary, is a dream of mine.

That night I decided to drive to the Old Lodge on Minchinhampton Common overlooking Amberley and treat myself to a good dinner.

It was still light after I finished dinner and Annie had suggested that I walk around the Rodborough Common (also a wide expanse of grasslands where there were free ranging cows AND free ranging horses which looked a bit like clydesdales. Not a fence in sight. No electric wire no bridles. Just cows and horses enjoying one of the best views in all of Britain. I walked along a path that led to the other valley opposite the one Queen Victoria called The Golden Valley. This vista had mountains in Wales in the distance and a view of the River Severn. I encountered a man and his poodle and asked him about the castle that I could see over the wall (a very small looking castle) and he said that it was bought and lived in by a man who owned one of the largest green energy companies in the UK. Somehow we ended up talking about geology and the fossils in the area and he said he had once found a quid beak that was very rare but he didn’t realize it at the time and had tossed it back. We were talking about how all this view had been largely under water and how many sea creatures had swum by where we were. For the record, he also had a beard. It must be a prerequisite in the region.

I took more photos of the cows and of the views and drove back to my little room on Well Road for my last night there.

This morning I woke early and said goodbye to Annie after we exchanged emails and drove to Thropp to her sister’s art supply store called Pegasus Art Shop. It’s in an old mill with eight artist studios and a teaching studio under the eaves. The woman, Jane who organizes the workshops there said she’d happily show me the spaces in case I wanted to rent a studio to teach or work in at some point. A watercolor class was just starting with two students and a very jovial teacher named .Richard Callingham. We talked about the joy of watercolor for travel and he showed me his adorable watercolor palette he had painted with a scene from Zermatt in Switzerland using acrylic. We artists love to talk about our gear!

I decided to stop in Nailsworth which is considered a very artistic area and went to Three Stories Gallery and Cafe which someone at Pegasus had recommended. I looked at several of the artist studio bios on the wall and then went into the cafe. As soon as I asked if they served eggs, the woman behind the counter asked if I was from Boston and said that she thought maybe I had spoken with her husband yesterday on the Common? There was some hilarious confusion as I realized the man I thought was her husband wasn’t because he had had a large black schnauzer. Once she said that wasn’t him, I thought of the next bearded man I had talked to and knew it couldn’t be Baron who had already shown me a picture of his wife over coffee. I realized it must have been the guy talking about his chickens and kites. I found out her name was Jan and his was Jemal. A very strange coincidence or maybe not?

I carefully navigated through the narrow streets of Nailsworth and found me way to the road to Bath aiming to stop at Dyrham Park and Gardens. It takes so much concentration to drive that I don’t dare listen to the radio or music as I normally do when I’m driving. Eventually I found Dyrham Park and set off down the path towards the grand house. The whole setting felt as if I was in a Masterpiece Theater shot and I guess I was because the house has been used in many movies and tv shows. It has the very unfortunate history of being built from money made in the slave trade and that overshadowed my experience, although I appreciated the horse chestnuts, linden trees and copper beeches on the way down.

I was excited to hear someone playing the harpsichord as I entered into the great hall in the house. The woman playing stopped and stood up and I thought that was a good moment to ask her what she was playing and for how long. We had a nice exchange and she went back to playing baroque gems. One of the most fascinating part of the tour in the house was the number of bells that all corresponded to a room in the house. There were pendulums below each bell so that the servants could see how recently they had been rung by the movement of the pendulum. There were also very scary looking spider traps placed in all the fireplaces with ominous looking black spiders unlike ones we have in New England (hopefully never).

I had a sandwich in the cafe and then went out to explore the grounds. I was fascinated to watch a duck pull grasses from a low lying nest and swim over to give it to its mate who was making a higher nest, all while their one surviving duckling was nervously cheeping around them. It’s an art form itself to make any sort of nest that holds up in different environments. I can almost imagine the conversation of the ducks as they decided that the one nest wasn’t good enough and they needed to build another one that was higher up.

I drove on towards Bath where I’d be staying with a dear cousin for two nights and found parking and did some sketching over tea in a cafe before driving to Jill and Jeremy’s house. It feels so good to finally be with family and people who have known me since I was six. It’s also exciting that I’ll be able to talk more about the journal I am transcribing from my relatives at the end of the 1800’s. Jill knows a lot about geneology and I can’t wait to show her images from this diary called Golden Days. It should be in a museum but for now I’m working on making a facsimile of it and researching the history of each of the women who went on this three week trip to Paris and Italy from Birmingham, England.