Day 5 - Sunday Afternoon in the Marsh

After yesterday's wonderfully written blog (obviously the work of my lovely wife and certainly well above the level at which I will ever write) I can only attempt to match its quality but here goes....Woke up to the smell of smoked bacon and fried eggs on a bright but overcast Sunday morning.  A few pints of the local bitter the night before meant a lie-in was on order.  So a fry-up was just what the doctor had ordered. A nice start to the day, and also on the 30th anniversary of our engagement. The plans for today were to travel to nearby Moreton-in-Marsh and do a walk-about to see whether this town would be a spot for us to find more permanent lodgings for the balance of our stay here in the U.K.  The trains from London Paddington stop in Moreton on their way west to the Malvern Hills and Worcester.  The town is central to the northern Cotswolds and provides good transportation links to other towns and villages in the area.

Moreton-in-Marsh lies on an old Roman road (Fosse Way) and no matter how hard we tried, we could not find the Marsh and so it most likely gets its name because it is mainly a low-lying, flat area within the Cotswold Hills.  The High Street contains a number of local shops and inns without the predominance of chain-brands found on most High Streets.  The Bell Inn once housed the great author J.R.R Tolkien and it is said that this inn gave him the idea for the Prancing Pony Inn in the Lord of the Rings , where Frodo and the hobbits first meet Strider.

and they even provide the local visitor with a chuckle!

There is a center strip within the High Street which contains large trees and adds to the beauty of the town.  We found a couple of interesting areas that might suit a longer stay but all of this house hunting made us terribly hungry and thirsty. So a typical Sunday Lunch Roast was on order before setting out for an extended walk through the local countryside.  A variety of choices were available to us and in the end we settled on the Black Bear Inn for a delightful roast beef supper (I know I said Sunday Lunch, but that is what is referred to as the main meal of the day!).  And yes, a pint of the local ale (BB - Red Ruby) helped wash it all down.

It was then time to work off these added calories by walking up into the hillside to Batsford House, and its arboretum (http://www.batsarb.co.uk/arboretum/history.asp).

The walk takes you through the west side of Moreton and through parkland, green pastures and farmland eventually rising to an elevaton where you have reached the point in England where the watershed divides either west into the Avon River system towards the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea or easterly into the Thames River (in fact we walked over a makeshift stone bridge that crosses the beginning of the Thames).

By the time we began our walk back into town the rain began and we were looking forward to the train trip back to Kingham for a cuppa and a relaxing evening in our cottage.

Ale of the Day: Cotswold IPA, Cotswald Brewery, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire