To celebrate my actual 50th birthday last weekend I wanted to be with my whole family. I’d found us a lovely, big old house in Burford and on Friday night everyone arrived. The house was an old coaching inn called White Hart House. We enjoyed a great weekend together and toasted my niece, Sian, who was the only one who couldn’t make it as she was on an internship in Singapore (had a better offer!)
On Saturday everyone had done their own thing and most of us (Jane, me, Mike, Miri, Rowan, Pete and Clare) had gone to the Moreton In Marsh show. This is a wonderful country show and its huge. We’d enjoyed the tent with large leeks, prize cakes, beautiful flowers etc. Then we moved onto the dog show and watched the young handlers with their dogs. The poultry tent was a new experience for all of us and was full of all sorts of birds and then a table full of prize eggs. We roamed the food tents and everyone found something they fancied for lunch. We’d missed the parade of prize winning cattle and sheep but at the end of the day we walked around this part admiring the different breeds of cow, bulls, sheep and goats.
We had a full afternoon before returning to the house to meet up with the others. Mum and Dad had been to Burford Garden Centre and Dave, Jayne and Nick had pottered about Burford village itself. In the evening we’d had a brilliant feast supplied by Michael our next door neighbour. We had a lovely evening catching up with everyone. Dave and I plotted how we would conquer the Cotswold Way on 2 days in October, Nick told us all about his trip to the US and Rowan explained how he’s now getting well into computer coding. Clare, meanwhile was telling us all about her hopes to become a psychiatrist and which Universities she was looking at going to. We even managed to have 30 seconds of contact with Sian through the ‘Snapchat’ App.
So that brought us to Sunday and the day we’d planned to do our walk. Of course the weather had been great all weekend but today, as we got ready to go, it started to drizzle. The walk I’d planned today was one we’d done a couple of times before and it takes us out of the front door and then to the village of Swinbrook. We had to sort logistics in terms of cars as some of the family would be driving straight off from here.
The plan was for the Under 80s to walk and then meet up with Mum and Dad at the other end and the pub for Sunday lunch. Unfortunately the plan wasn’t very well executed as Mike and Miri left their coats in their car parked at the pub. This meant they had nothing to protect them from the rain which was now starting to come down more heavily. Luckily Mum and Dad came to the rescue as they had an array of waterproofs with them.
All geared up we set off and the walk initially took us along the road and under quite a lot of trees which offered us some protection from what was now a heavy downpour. After a while the path then dips down towards the river and then continues through the water meadows. This is the River Windrush which is a lovely river and the walk essentially follows the river valley.
The big group was led by Dave (eldest brother) who is the fastest person I have walked with so far this year! As a result the group became quite spaced out but we all caught up with each other when we came across a herd of cows coming towards us. They seemed in quite a lot of distress with a lot of mooing. It appeared that we were all stood where they wanted to go. Behind them, and apparently herding them towards us, there was another group of walkers and presumably the cows were a feeling a bit surrounded. It was a bit of a stand off before our group broke the trail and marched forwarded through the middle of the herd. This was fine although Mum told me later that there had been a lot of warnings to walkers this Summer about not upsetting cows. Phew, a lucky escape then…
Next the path crosses the river at a bridge in the hamlet of Widford. Here we all played the obligatory game of pooh sticks. Pete was v excited that he won with his very leafy twig. The path then moves away from the river and we walked through pastures which in Spring are covered in yellow wildflowers. The weather now cheered up and became quite warm as we walked towards Swinbrook. It’s a lovely village with some really smart houses and cottages which we all admired.
As we entered the village we saw Dad walking towards us and then we walked down to the pub together to find Mum. The pub is the Swan and its a lovely old building at another bridge over the river. It’s covered in Virginia Creeper and looks really old from outside. Our table for dinner wasn’t quite ready so we sat and had a drink outside by the river instead. It really was lovely and Dad commented, as he’d does, that this was a proper river as it actually flowed.
The Swan has an unusual landlady- the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire aka Deborah Mitford. She is 92 years old and one of the famous Mitford Sisters. I don’t think she’s seen around here very often pulling pints but her mark is definitely strongly felt in the pub decor and I particularly liked her fine collection of walking sticks on the wall.
Once our table was ready we all settled down for a delicious Sunday lunch which was very good. We also enjoyed another chance to view poultry as the pub had their own family of hens roaming the gardens including some tiny chicks which were very cute.
After lunch some of the family went off home and only Jane, Pete and I walked back rounding off the walk to a good 4.6 miles in total today. Back at the house only Mum and Dad were waiting and when Pete left it was just the 4 of us rattling about in peace on Sunday night.
It had been a memorable weekend and great to get the whole family together to help me celebrate my birthday the next day. This doesn’t happen often so it’s very special when we do all get chance to be together.
Walky Talky 