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Our Stay in the Saxon Villages
"We stayed in two village B&Bs and experienced what life must have been like 50 or 100 years ago. The first place was clean and simple, both cosy rooms had a little wood burning stove. The toilet was outside, but the bathroom had plenty of hot water, from the quaint wood fired boiler beside the bath which kept the bathroom really warm. Our hosts must have got up really early to light the bathroom fire.
We also stayed in one of the rather stylish village guest houses offering a modern ensuite with inside toilet and central heating- lovely, but not quite so atmospheric and unusual. In most villages the cows coming home is an everyday experience throughout the summer months. To avoid being indoors having supper at this time, we asked our hosts for supper later so we could see this amazing event.
At night, we had never seen stars so bright or curling wood smoke rising vertically from the chimneys (like an elegant signature against the sky)- there is very little wind, so smoke from different chimneys doesn't mix. The day's long walks, the silence, the lack of traffic, no lights and the purity of the air all contributed to us sleeping soundly and waking refreshed.
We woke to the sound of the cows going out to graze and the milk churns being taken to the milk collection centre, such new sounds. We listened and luxuriated in bed until we couldn't resist peeping out of the window to see villagers quietly going about their business, cows and horses drinking at the trough in the middle of the village and the crane sitting on her nest on top of the telegraph pole.
In one house we enjoyed breakfast (eggs of our choice, delicious sour dough bread and homemade jams, fresh cheese, cucumbers and tomatoes, strong coffee or delicate home-dried herb tea) in the warmth of the family kitchen. In the other, when the weather picked up, we ate in the dappled sun under the vine in the courtyard, watching the hilarious antics of a bunch of kittens and some chicks and ducklings.
The only downside to this experience was the culture shock of leaving the timeless rural villages, where horse and carts are still the main from of transport and arriving back on the main road, never mind the busy towns!"
Anthony and Gina, Cumbria, UK
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"I was charmed by the breadth of the village street, with its great green swards sloping down from houses to dusty road. A stream ran parallel to the road and pear trees grew alongside it. The walls of the houses were high, with windows too far up to
look in. Archways with solid wooden gates were big enough for loaded haywains to enter but permitted no glimpse of the courtyards within.
I watched owners emerge in the morning, carrying pails of foaming milk up to the village collection point, while their cows, plus any goats and horses with foals, walked themselves down to meet the herdsman who takes them to communal grazing outside the village. Men with pitchforks and scythes set off by horse and cart to gather forage for their
livestock. Ducks and geese waddled out to breakfast on the grass.
Such everyday scenes of rural life would have been familiar to Britons in earlier centuries. We know them from the writings of Thomas Hardy, John Clare and Richard Jefferies. Half-close your eyes, mentally erase the tea rooms and antique shops from a wide-verged Cotswold village of today, and you begin to get the picture."
Philippa Davenport
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