Off to Banbury by train to spend a couple of days with friends in Bloxham.
Setting the scene:
Bloxham: honey colored stone houses and cottages with thatched, slate or stone rooves, walled gardens, window boxes, hanging baskets, stream running through the village, some cobbled streets....
Dorothy: Scot, giver of excellent, dramatic annual Bobbie Burns Supper's, ex actress and BBC TV, antique trader, car boot sale and fair junkie (especially fabrics), wicked sense of humour, previous generous London lodgings provider, now married to "Georgeous George", and living in 3 places at once, it seems.
George: Scot, Tory, awarded OBE for services to politics while I've been here, husband to non-Tory Dottie, master of spaniel Millie and the veggie garden, proud of 2 unknown grapevines.
Their heritage listed home (seems they all are over here!), has been beautifully & cleverly renovated since they bought it, and has a generous walled garden with a big lawn, thriving garden beds with roses, wisteria, wallflowers ..... & veggie plots.
With 2 yrs to catch up on, lots of laughs, lunch, a walk through fields of broadbeans and forest, then 'Falkland Arms' pub (see pics), then dinner at home with George's cellar relieved of several very worthy bottles.
A trot down the cobbled lanes to the paper shop in the morning revealed police car on a backstreet and another with a Mr Plod on the Main Road - we missed the conversation in the way past.....Midsomer Murder?
Revealed 24 hrs later a 21 yr old man had been found dead in the stream we crossed. Sleepy Bloxham!
Dottie and I left George to garden duties while we headed to lunch with Petrona (ex movie makeup artist who introduced me to the gorgeous 'Mr Darcy' and his real wife on another trip).
We descended on 'Daylesford Organic Farm' in nearby Gloucestershire, (see www.daylesford.com). Its a rather upmarket farm shop - worth a visit for their delicatessen range (cholestrol will rise just browsing in the cheese room), well manicured gardens with outdoor furniture, urns, fountain ( everything has a price tag) and plant nursery, day spa, clothing store (stunning clothes in design & fabrics, sadly with too many 0's after the £ on price tags for me), wine shop, home wares and cottage accommodation, even if you don't make it to the restaurant! Food all fresh and excellent. It must as there were people QUEUING for tables watching us eat!!! We had booked of course.
Great catch up for we girls before I trained it back to London for the night.