A Natural Break

Part of the new office suite

I have finally come to a natural break in my decorating marathon! Since the beginning of January I have been, more or less, fully employed painting and decorating at the new suite of offices in Wells. I've actually really enjoyed the challenge, although I have found it quite exhausting on some days where I seemed to be bending, stretching and climbing step ladders for six hours! I have managed to find solutions to most of the problems that cropped up, including some creative filler work to repair some architrave around a door frame and also to mimic some textured wallpaper that had been torn but couldn't be removed due to the nature of the substrate (in the stairwell). I can't have done too bad a job as I have been offered the contract to paint and decorate the new flat that will eventually be created at the rear of the offices, so that will keep me busy later in the year. As the weather has generally been so wet, it has meant that I have been gainfully employed when I couldn't do any gardening, paid or otherwise, and did not have to sit at home wondering what to do! As they say: a win-win situation.

The scaffold planks formed a false floor for me to paint off

The stairwell - from mustard coloured darkness to bright white! 

At the weekend I drove one of my favourite routes, at any time of the year – from The Mendips to The Cotswolds. It was a beautiful, crisp morning with high clouds and a hazy sun when I set out along the A37 up onto the Mendips and across the plateau through Farrington Gurney, Hallatrow and Marksbury before dropping down through Corston to Bath. The fields for the most part were bare and winter-stripped but at Ston Easton there was a flock of sheep with a few early lambs gambolling about in the sunshine, and clumps of snowdrops in some of the hedgerows.

At Bath, I climbed back up onto the Cotswolds by way of Lansdown Hill and then looped my way across to the A46 near Dyrham Park. I was saddened to see that the old Toll House Tearooms, a marker on my journey for so many years, has closed and the little hanging teapot sign has been removed. Many's the time I promised myself that I would stop and have a cuppa and I never did, perhaps that was the problem – too few people actually did succumb to the temptation of that gently swinging sign promising all sorts of delicious goodies within.

Passing over the motorway I continued on my way, halting briefly at the traffic lights at the junction in Old Sodbury next to the Cross Hands Hotel. It was here that, one dreadful winter's evening, the Queen and Prince Philip, returning from some official engagement were advised that it was too dangerous to continue and spent the night in this hostelry – imagine the flurry that caused in this lovely old inn! Not far from there I drove through a small hamlet called Petty France and thence on to Dunkirk! I have searched for the origins of these French-sounding names but cannot find any definitive answer, although there is the possibility that some French Huguenot weavers settled here and that is where the names derive from. By now I was up on top of the Cotswold Plateau, so different in aspect to the Mendip Plateau that I had left behind. Here there are large, mainly arable fields enclosed by Cotswold stone walls, and clumps of trees, usually denoting a settlement of some kind as they were probably planted as windbreaks against the south-westerly winds which must scour across this upland region. The winter wheat is growing well, due to the mild, wet winter and even the grasslands look greener than normal at this time of the year.

Having passed through Westonbirt, with the wonderful Arboretum on my left, I dropped down into the small hamlet of Doughton where there is an unremarkable wall, gates and lodge house which forms the understated entrance to Prince Charles' Highgrove House, from where it is just a short hop to the beautiful Cotswold town of Tetbury with its soaring church spire dominating the landscape. At this point, I normally head off towards Cirencester on the main road but, as it was such a beautiful day I decided to go 'off piste' and set off along a series of narrow lanes which really immersed me in rural Cotswold scenery. My decision paid off as it wasn't long before I saw more snowdrops and a beautiful clump of early yellow primroses sheltering in the lee of a wall. Along the banks in the tiny village of Winstone were bright daffodils nodding their heads in the breeze and, at one crossroads, there were two men rebuilding an ancient drystone wall. They had taken down the old wall and were busy reusing the stone but, because they were turning the stones in a different orientation, the original butter-yellow of the Cotswold stone was showing, like the newly-revealed skin when a snake sloughs off its old one. It won't take long before the elements weather these newly-exposed faces back to a more mellow yellow-grey that will fit in with the rest of the wall. I gave the workers a cheery wave as I continued on my way, finally passing through Elkstone (and narrowly avoiding two pretty red-legged partridges that were fussing about in the road), down into Cowley, past the Green Dragon pub and back onto the main Cheltenham to Cirencester road near my beloved grain silos (referred to in a previous blog) and down the long hill into Cheltenham.

I just love that drive – there is always something new or interesting to see, whatever the time of year – I even saw a kestrel hovering over the verge at one point. This bird, that used to be such a common sight, has become much less so over the last ten to twenty years, but I fancy that I am seeing more of them again now, so perhaps they are staging a comeback?

Talking of birds of prey, Jeni and I went on an Owl Prowl on Monday evening, with the local wildlife group. We met in a car park on top of the Mendips next to a heavily wooded area and were guided on our Prowl by Chris Sperring MBE, who is an expert on our native hawks and owls. We had hoped to attract the very rare Long-eared Owl which was known to be in the area last year but, sadly there was no sign of them. The pair that were on Mendip last year did not breed so it is possible that one or both of the pair have died. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, most of our native owls are in serious decline, even the Tawny who has been rock-steady for decades. Chris attributes the decline mainly to lack of food and this is caused by lack of suitable habitat for their chief food – mice and voles. Apparently, we, as a nation, are just too keen to manage and 'tidy' our woodlands and field edges (and our gardens, too) so that there is not enough long, tussocky grass in which the voles and mice can live.

Having failed to attract an answer from a Long-eared Owl, Chris swapped species and tried calling for Tawny Owls. This was more successful, with at least five different birds responding, but all at some distance away. To try and get them to come closer, Chris did an Oscar-winning performance of a dying woodmouse – it took several minutes to 'die', by which time Jeni and I had got the giggles! I'm pretty certain that the owls had sussed out that it was 'that nice Mr Sperring' calling to them and they refused to come any closer, but it was a lovely walk in the dark wood, especially when the cloud cover suddenly disappeared revealing a full moon and a myriad of stars!

As a postscript to that little story – I woke at about 5.30 the other morning to hear our resident Tawny Owl, calling in the trees just outside my house, but at least I now know that it was a male calling and will be able to identify the female if she ever calls back!

The full moon through fir trees on Mendip