Spent another delightful afternoon in Kiftsgate Garden close to Chipping Campden. The house sits on top of a hill & the garden encircles it but then leads down the steep escarpment to a pool lawn with a magnificent view over the countryside.  It is the creation of 3 generations of women gardeners, has many beautiful 'garden rooms' & is home to the spectacular Kiftsgate Rose - claimed to be the largest in England. It has a vast spread right to the top...

After the advice of many people not to drive because you never find a place to park, we went by train to Oxford for the day. An easy walk to the town then waited by the green bicycle for the Footprints Walking Tour. This turned out to be two hours of great fun & insights from Tom, a very personable young man with a great British accent who walked & talked us about under the dreaming spires! We really enjoyed his stories of the Bridge of Sighs, The Bodleia...

After a strange day on Friday when we learned the very sad news of the death of Geoff's mum Estelle, we spent a quiet weekend in Chipping Campden. Appropriately there were open gardens here on both days so we spent both afternoons mooching about among the gardens. It seemed exactly the right thing to be doing as Mum loved the flowers & gardens of England. There was everything from the ruins of Old Campden House which was destroyed by the royalists during the ...

Joined in a morning walk around Chipping Campden with a volunteer warden who told us some of the local history & explained a few of the building styles. This was a wealthy town based on the wool trade (much like Australia in the glory days). The houses here are all 2 perches wide - who remembers that measurement?? From the old rod, pole or perch lengths - 1 perch is 5 & a half yards so the houses are 11 yards wide. I am actually so old that I remember lea...

On the 98th anniversary of Geoff's dad Stan's birthday it seemed perfect to spend the day in Tewkesbury where Stan's father lived before he moved with his family to Australia. Looming over the small town is the enormous Tewkesbury Abbey which was consecrated over 800 years ago & is one of the largest Norman churches in the country. We had a long chat with one of the chaplains who explained much of the history & architecture. There is a brilliant mirror ar...