The ‘Bears’ on this walk are in fact Joe, Neil and Maddie. Their surnames not actually Bear but they do live at Bear Cottage – hence the nickname. Last weekend, having decided not to go to the Lakes, we got in touch with the Bears to see if they fancied that walk with a picnic we’d been talking about but not had time to fit in. Miraculously they were free and up for it so on Bank Holiday Monday last week they came over to our house.
I tried to plan the day carefully to include both a simple walk with some interest, a nice picnic spot and then a visit to a local village fete. Jane had already been out to Morrison’s and bought up there entire stock of picnic foods and we’d dusted off our picnic basket and so we were well prepared.
The walk today would start at nearby Toddington on the road to Winchcombe. We parked at the Pheasant Pub and then walked up to what was my first point of interest today. Toddington is home to the main terminus for the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway and as it was a Bank Holiday I figured that they’d be busy chugging trains up and down the line to Cheltenham. Eventually, they hope to extend this railway in the other direction to good old Broadway.
As we had a busy day planned we didn’t go down onto the platforms and instead went to the start of our walk. The path starts in a field alongside the railway line and I had hoped that we would be able to get a good view of the trains and wave at them (it has to be done). However, unfortunately we couldn’t really get a great view though the bushes and trees. Neil told us that his Grandad used to work on the steam trains and loved it.
It soon became obvious that this wasn’t a very well trodden path. There were thistles and stinging nettles all along the way. None of us were particularly well dressed for such ‘extreme’ conditions. Shorts, sandals and cut offs are not a great combination with stingers it turns out. Soon everyone was grumbling and trying to find dock leaves to calm their stings without much success. They were, as Joe would say, in a world of pain! Oh dear…it only seemed to be me that didn’t get stung at all….
By now it was becoming a very hot sunny day again. We found lots of blackberries along the way today and all of us tried to find the big ripe juicy sweet ones. Except Neil who seemed to think that we’d all regret eating unwashed fruit later on in the day when we were sick. We weren’t by the way.
After a while we emerged from the field onto a lane near some old railway workers cottages. The lane went under a railway bridge and we could hear the train whistle blowing but still no trains to actually be seen. Shame. We strolled down the lane until we got to the main road and as our route carried on on the other side of the road we had to dodge the speeding cars to continue. Then we had to climb over a stile into the next field. Unfortunately this stile was rather rickety and also covered in stinging nettles. Not good…sorry everybody.
Once in the field the path goes straight through the middle of the crop which today was corn on the cob. It was about 8 feet tall and went on for about half a mile. Not exactly scenic. We did have a laugh though as Jane and Joe couldn’t help themselves- each picking their own corncob to take home later. They had a plan that if the farmer approached us, they’d hand them to Maddie and blame her which is why she doesn’t look too impressed in the photo! Thieving Brummies.
At the end of this long field we emerged onto another rough track and then back onto a main road. Here we took the decision to miss out a bit of the route and walk back along the road. It really was too hot and we were all wilting a bit after ‘stingergate’. We walked 3 miles in total today although because of the heat it felt a lot further. We decided to reward ourselves with a drink in the pub. We thought we’d sit outside but this was another wasp world and so we retired inside. In here we got a fit of the giggles as we often do when Joe gets going. The pub really was a bit tired and there was a lingering smell of disinfectant which was rather unpleasant. Joe was not impressed.
We decided not to hang about and now drove to look at one of the other points of interest that we should have seen on our walk. This is Toddington Manor which is actually hidden behind gates but is the home of Damien Hirst the artist. We could just about see the house which is covered in scaffolding and polythene as he has been restoring the place for years.
Next stop was the picnic spot and we made our way over to Dumbleton where the fete was going to be. We drove into the manor grounds here and were totally amazed to see just how many cars had turned up for this tiny village fete. We love Dumbleton (or Dumbledore as we like to call it) which is a tiny, sleepy village with beautiful houses and one of my favourite cafes- the Art Cafe. Here you can get your pictures framed at the same time as having a cappuccino and a slice of coffee and walnut cake.
There were hundreds of cars parked up in the field and Maddie asked if the fete was going to be similar to Glastonbury. Possibly…..
It was hard to see where we could set up our picnic and not be surrounded by cars but we walked along a bit and found a nice spot near a big oak tree and overlooking the fete. We set up our rugs and chairs and got out our feast. Joe and Neil had even brought some bubbles and we had an early toast for my upcoming birthday! They gave me a present as well which was a book of photos Joe had put together as a memento of our previous Cornwall holiday. This made me laugh a lot and brought back very happy memories. It really was lovely and a perfect day for a picnic- once again exactly what I’d wanted it to be. We didn’t even get bothered by wasps out here. It was very, very hot though and soon the bubbles were going to our heads and we came over all sleepy. Neil and Maddie retired to the nearby oak tree to seek some shade whilst we had another mini battenberg to go with our Prosecco.
In danger of nodding off we thought it was time to walk down and have a look at what all the fuss was about at the fete. This was being held on the village cricket pitch. It’s a stunning spot with an amazingly posh pavilion and a wonderful backdrop of hills behind the pitch. Today, however, it was covered in people and stalls. There was everything from cream teas to a beer tent, a Punch and Judy to an archery display. There was an enormous queue for ice cream which we couldn’t be bothered with and Maddie happily settled for a bag of candyfloss. Maddie and Neil had a go on the coconut shy and Neil was a winner with his very first shot. This would go very nicely with our corn on the cob for tea later.
After this we wandered about a bit in a daze as we really were so hot. Joe said it was like something out of Midsommer Murders and that if we saw John Nettles we were to scarper. We’d soon had enough and again retired to the shade of a big tree. I decided to spice things up when I heard that stalls were now offering cheap deals in order to get rid of all their tut. I gave Maddie and Jane a pound each to go and buy the most impressive finds. Kind of like that antiques programme. Off they went immediately to the toy stall. We could see them eyeing up bargains, consulting and then negotiating with the stallholders. This was big business and they were taking my challenge seriously. After 15 mins they still weren’t back and I began to regret not just giving them a pound between them.
When they got back they looked very proud of themselves. Maddie had her arms FULL of games and had even managed to buy her Mum a nice ‘new’ handbag. Jane on the other hand just had a small soft toy. It appeared to be some sort of baby squirrel or rat with cross eyes. Poor thing. No wonder she felt she had to rescue it.
Now it was time to say our farewells and despite the fact that the walk had been a bit rubbish we’d had a lovely day and the picnic was a huge success.
Ps later on we discovered that Jane’s cuddly toy was in fact a cross eyed wombat. Such an upmarket village fete!
Walky Talky 