ENGLAND (redux)

May 25, 2010

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog know I like England. Even mentioned that preference again at the end of my last blog about Italy. (Speaking of which, as a result  I now  seem to have a new follower.
http://www.gattto999.it/   She states she is a young Italian writer who, in her own words "writes fables, novels and stories")
Anyway, back to England. I came over again last Tuesday and stayed thru the weekend, once again enjoying the gracious hospitality of Susie and Mike in Bloxom. I had a company car for the weekend, and after having driven here a few times before, I am getting more comfortable driving, even taking time to pull over and stop for some photographs. The weather was perfect and everything is in bloom. The canola fields make a perfect contrast to the  deep greens of spring.  (As my Canadian readers  may know, the original name for canola was rapeseed, however I can only assume the name upset a number of people (for obvious reasons), so the name is now canola. I looked it up and the name canola comes from the term: CANadian Oil Low Acid). I did not know that, although I had guessed it may have had something to do with Canada.

Below - Fields of Rapeseed

Picture below : This is typical of the roads on the way to Bloxom from Cheltenham. While it is only about 39 miles beteween the two places, there are a lot of villages along the way. (Bourton on the Water, Chipping Norton). I stopped and pulled over when I took the picture, I was not driving, despite how this may look.

 

 I am  returning  to Cheltenham on June 2nd with Genya. We will remain in England until the 7th of June. In the interest of full disclosure, I am moving to England (Cheltenham) in June. So we will be looking for a place to live in Cheltenham versus a place in Paris.  Initially we will move into a service apartment, but I am trying to find something less expensive and hopefully larger. We move out of the Paris apartment on May 29th, and then into a hotel for the remainder of the time.

As I said, it was  a lovely weekend, so I went for a walk and took some pictures.

This is Bloxom from the footpath near Susies.

The "Old Bakery" in full bloom in Bloxom.

In Susies garden with Jessie.

Mike heading out for a Sunday ride on his bike.

We are expecting cooler weather across Europe later this week, which will be a bit of relief, as my apartment does not have air conditioning, and we have to do packing for the move!