I come back after a five week absence to find that another four houses, round the corner from where I live and which have been part of my childhood, are going to be torn down, to be replaced by yet another block of souless flats. The environment organisations seem to be like a voice mumbling in the wind and no one is listening. 

I spent a fairly quiet time in the Cotswolds which is the antithesis of Sliema, and indeed Malta.

Anthony, Judith and Harry near the River Windrush

Most villages are a cluster of picture-perfect cottages around a Norman or Saxon church, usually with an imposing manor house, a reminder of feudalism, steeped in history and standing in its own grounds.

Gardens are taken seriously and everyone in those parts, gardens. Many cottage owners can be glimpsed upside down in a herbaceous border, trimming, planting, pruning and planning their gardens.  They know the names of each flowering bush, each tree, every butterfly. 

Maya and Harry in a field in Cheltenham

Indeed it is man’s ability to work with nature that makes the Cotswolds a special area. It is also this, above all, that makes Cotswolds’ architecture so domestic and yet grand. The cottages are made of Cotswold stone and its affinity to the landscape from which it was born. 

Derelict cottages are snapped up, converted and glorified with mod cons inside. Woe betide anyone if they tinkle about with the essentials. The locals will be at the council offices in no time. They take good care that no one wipes out the character lines of these lovely villages. 

Our fight in Malta is almost a lost cause and has been for a long time. We continue to cultivate ugliness with relish. I am beginning to think that perhaps the tsunami that was predicted in the papers recently would not be such a bad thing. Everything here is measured in terms of money. People will do the unthinkable to get rich nowadays. Some things cannot be valued in terms of money, one of them being the environment.  And you don’t have to be Nostradamus to see that in many cases the education of these ‘developers’, big or small,  and taste have simply not caught up with their bank accounts.

Anthony leads an expedition

* * ** *

My friends the Duviviers invited us to lunch one weekend at their cottage in Windrush where around one hundred people live. Windrush stone is white and used in many of Oxford’s noted buildings. As we drove to their cottage we remarked on the politeness and courtesy on the roads.  Driving is not half as stressful as it is here for drivers show respect to one another. 

Lunch in the garden was idyllic. Judith had given Anthony a jukebox for one of his birthdays and the children were fascinated. We loved the old songs by Elvis Presley and others of that era. 

Judith, a GP, produces delicious meals without any fuss and large doses of humour. I have known her husband Anthony for over 50 years, since he came to Malta as a medical student and was traumatised by what he experienced in the gynaecology ward at St Luke’s. He went on to become an eminent dermatologist and has been seeing patients in Wimpole Street for many years. 

One of his grandmothers lived almost permanently at the Savoy and wore Molyneux gowns. A fashionable woman would turn to this British designer of Irish and French Huguenot descent if she wanted to be absolutely right without being utterly predictable in the Twenties and Thirties. Anthony’s grandmother died in her ‘80s as she was on her way,once again, to some grand evening, in her furs and Molyneux gown. “We had to call her friends to give them the news,” Judith told me. What did they do with all those magnificent gowns, hats and furs? “We took them to the local charity shop,” was the reply.

We visited the Anglican church opposite their cottage. Monk’s hidey-holes, Roman grain stores, church barns and ancient churches are very much part of the Cotswolds scene as are horseriders and wellingtons.  

Anthony is a practicing Catholic and Judith (and her mother) fervent converts. We went to the church graveyard and he showed me where they will eventually be buried, next to Judith’s father, the tombstones reminding us that all is vanity.  Inevitably conversation turned to faith. Yes, we agreed, it would be wonderful to be given another chance, now that we are older and wiser, to have long conversations with those we have loved but who had passed away. Who knows if we shall ever be given such an opportunity?

*****

I was invited to stay overnight in this lovely cottage, three weeks later, once my daughter and grandchildren had left. We picked up strands of previous conversations during dinner and breakfast.  I slept in a ‘Princess and the Pea’ bed in a delightful bedroom. It is so good to be with a loving couple who have such generosity of spirit.

* ** * *

On another day I had lunch with a Maltese couple at the Woolpack in Slad, a pub made famous because it was the ‘local’ of Laurie Lee of Cider with Rosie fame.  

After a long lunch I suggested tea and Edgar said he had a surprise for us. I was intrigued as he drove us further and further in this beautiful countryside which must hold so many secrets, and into a ‘No Thru Road’ where we came to a cottage with forest on one side. There we were greeted by another Maltese whose English wife had prepared tea for us which we had in the cosy sitting room. They have been living in England for many years and Antoinette was and still is the personal assistant to the columnist and author Jilly Cooper who lives nearby.  Jilly is writing another novel but does not use a word processor. 

Another delightful day, full of reminiscences.  

The children loved the experience of a Cotswolds farm and Sudeley Castle and its magnificent gardens. 

All went smoothly. No lost keys, or passports of boarding passes. No lost luggage or stolen handbags. Lovely weather almost throughout.  The meeting with old friends made this a break to remember. 

I put the key in the door, counted my blessings and said loudly ‘Home sweet Home’. 

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