The unknown author of the above verses was obviously living in a cold country, unlike us. When I go away in the summer months for a relatively long time I like to call it 'hibernation'. Perhaps it isn't le mot juste as I am trying to get away from the heat and not the cold. However the dictionaries accept its use with a reference to humans who want to get away from too much activity and 'withdraw' for a while.
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My time in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds has a less demanding schedule and the slowing down includes very few phonecalls and absolutely no internet. Above all I love the privacy; the beautiful scenery, the harmony of the architecture, the lack of noise, the general politeness, the friendships and so much more.
Despite several visits I still find this Regency town charming and restful to the spirit. It has a well-appointed and very active art gallery and museum - The Wilson - with an excellent café attached. Their collection of Arts and Crafts Movement furniture is what I like best of all since the exhibits are changed regularly so there is always something new to admire. There is plenty more to see for those interested.
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There are also regular exhibitions and this year they had two simultaneously Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge and Queen Victoria in Paris featuring over 40 stunning watercolours from The Royal Collection capturing the historic state visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Paris in August 1855. Their host was Emperor Napoleon II nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The watercolours were commissioned as souvenirs of Queen Victoria's momentous state visit and the first by a British monarch in over 400 years. The collection also includes some watercolours and a drawing by Queen Victoria herself.
Following years of antipathy between France and Britain, this visit was intended to cement the historic alliance between the two countries, developed through their fight against Russia in the Crimean War.
The works act as fascinating records of the opulent surroundings and the pomp and pageantry of Queen Victoria's visit, and are representative of art and taste during her reign. Queen Victoria was a passionate collector of watercolours, compiling a sequence of 'Souvenir Albums' during her marriage to Albert, which recorded the journeys, events and visits the couple attended together.
One display is a letter of Queen Victoria to Leopold King of the Belgians and dated 23 August 1855. He was her favourite uncle and she wrote to him several times from Paris. The letterhead has a vignette of the Palais d'Industrie which that year hosted the Exposition Universelle, France's first international exhibition of fine arts and industry. The Queen wrote: 'I am delighted, enchanted, amused and interested and I think I never saw anything more beautiful and gay than Paris. Our reception is most gratifying.'
Some French observers of the state visit were amused at the Queen's rather dreary English taste in clothes. But she did have a white and gold dress made in Paris 'which was much admired by the Emperor and everybody.'
Like the rest of Britain, if not the world, Cheltenham seems to have a weakness for coffee chains. I personally prefer to patronize the independent coffee shops which are more intimate, have more character and whose fare is more interesting, less 'uniform'.
The owners of independent coffee shops are beginning to feel squeezed by the big chains and protesting. There is no surer way for a town to lose its identity than by substituting small shops - coffee or anything else - with these dreary chains.
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Weekends in the Cotswolds, particularly Windrush are always delightful thanks to my dear friends Anthony and Judith Duvivier who have a cottage there and come down from London on weekends. They are so generous in their hospitality, such excellent company, so sincere in their advice and full of empathy. Moreover Judith is an excellent cook.
Anthony is the author of the authoratative Atlas of Clinical Dermatology and Judith a GP of enormous experience. Anthony reminded me that we have known each other for 50 years, ten years more than he has known his wife Judith. I was lucky to be in England when they were celebrating 40 years of what is evidently a very happy marriage.
As part of their celebrations some 30 friends were invited to drinks at their cottage followed by an excellent dinner at the church hall where we listened to two amusing and brilliant speeches, one of them by Anthony and another their friend Hillary who wrote hers in verse.
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This little village of Windrush is a perfect example of the unpremeditated patterns into which many of the Cotswold villages naturally form themselves. There is a native good taste of the people who helped to make it what it is.
The way each cottage differs from its neighbour by some slight variation has charm. There is no monotonous uniformity. Because stone from local quarries was used throughout the village for barns, sheds, gate-posts as well as for the dwellings and the church, the result is in harmony with its surroundings and with itself.
Today an old cottage is valued for its picturesque qualities. It has acquired value as an antique with a status for its owner that an antique bestows but it has a more genuine significance.
Yet old cottages have no architectural pretensions. Most of them were erected by the cottagers themselves with the help of a village mason.
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Armed with a well-thumbed copy of Simon Jenkin's England's Thousand Best Churches one weekend we visited two churches. (Since Judith had found this reference book so useful she bought a copy for each member of the family).
Cotswold churches are above all renowned for their Norman work. In the last few years these old churches have been partially restored for safety reasons by a few loving hands.
One church we entered, beautiful in all it's simplicity and the patina of age very evident, had a few lit candles and neat pieces of paper with messages to God. One said, 'Please don't let my grandfather live much longer as he is suffering so.' I hope God heard her prayer.
I love the community spirit in these parts. I was invited to lunch on the village green organized to raise funds for the Anglican church nearby. The food was entirely taken care of by the locals, many of whom only come down to spend the weekend. Catholics, Anglicans and possibly agnostics too all worked hard and enthusiastically.
Gardening is taken seriously and there is pride in gardens and hours of work are spent making them beautiful. And they are. There is even a snowdrop expert giving them tips Judith told me.
The garden of the Duvivier cottage is reminiscent of Mr McGregor's garden in Beatrix Potter's classic story The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Judith who takes care of it with some help from a gardener who comes for a few hours regularly, reminds me of Vita Sackville West except that Judith is so much better looking and doesn't have Vita's vices.
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Prosecuted, persecuted and penalized, the survival of the Catholics in Britain is the triumph of more than simple faith. It is the victory of moral and spiritual unbending certainty.
Successive Protestant kings, queens and ministers may have deployed every weapon at their disposal - spies, penal taxation, exclusion from public life and gory, staged executions - to force Catholics on pain of destitution and death to conform to the new national religion, but they failed to impose their will. But the cost of survival was enormous. Anti catholic hysteria was a reality. So many lost their lives. I well remember the stories in our school library, of priests in hidden priest holes and secret chapels.
An enormous thank you to those who made my stay such a pleasure and who went out of their way to do so. You know who you are.
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