Wednesday 24 December 2008

Stratford-Upon-Avon via Chipping Norton

We all went for a drive yesterday afternoon. Needed a bit of a Madeleine adventure. We decided to go to Stratford-Upon-Avon and when M was organising the GPS, he told it to take us via Chipping Norton. Don't ask me why, he just did. It's slightly longer, but we passed through some delightful villages.

The first part of the trip followed the same route as when I took the bus to Blenheim Palace. So we passed the lovely little towns of Yarnton and Begbroke. I've still not taken any photos of either of these towns, but noticed how pretty they both were on each time I've been through them.

The houses in the towns in this area appear to be mainly made from stone. So as you drive along, there is stone houses all along the side of the road.

The hedgerows have mainly lost all their leaves so as you are driving you can see into the fields behind. Whereas during the earlier part of the year, the fields behind the hedgerows are a mystery.

We arrived at Chipping Norton to discover that there was a farmer's market happening.

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However, after a very brief time in the market, I realised that M&K had disappeared. In the distance, I spotted:

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Books and coffee in the one spot. Well I figured I'd better go and check to see if they'd found this place. And, yes, they had. M had ordered some coffee to keep him going until lunch. I ordered some blueberry and pear cake and told them not to bother too much with wrapping it up as it wasn't going to last very long. Here's the last little bit. I started eating before I remembered to take a photo.

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Lovely !!

A quick browse around the town. This was the market. When I said “small” I mean “small”. It just filled in that corner and that was it. More of a food market, than a craft market, meat, cheese, bread, vegetables. And people meeting up and catching up on a Sunday.

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And the local pub:

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And then we hopped in the car and headed for Stratford-Upon-Avon. Like many places, when we first arrived, finding a place to park the car was the first priority. Luckily, most people were out Christmas shopping and not touristing. One of the reasons we decided to tourist today and not go anywhere near the shops.

After M&K grabbing a quick something food wise to keep them going (they hadn't eaten at the Jaffe & Neil Bookshop like smart Madeleine had), we started to wander and the first thing we saw was this:

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Would you believe, a shop selling nothing but Christmas items. Everything from tinsel to miniatures (well, things small enough to use as miniatures). It was enchanting. Music in the background to dance to, and lots of pretty things to look at and buy. Apparently they have four shops. I didn't ask what happens after Christmas, so either their business is very, very slow at other times of the year, or they sell other things. I have no idea. However, it was a gorgeous shop.

I must admit, although I enjoyed our day out, I was disappointed with Stratford-Upon-Avon. Other than Shakespeare's birth place the main area consisted of shops, shops and more shops. Some with very interesting names. “The Little Sweet Shop”, “As you like it”, “Presents in Mind” and similar sorts of names. I can't remember them all. Tacky is the word that comes to mind, but it didn't feel tacky. Very much aimed at the tourists and money making.

However, Stratford-Upon-Avon had lots of charm in other areas. At one stage, the sky clouded over and with the sun shining on the buildings and the dark, overcast sky, this is what it looked like.

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As we were wandering around looking for a place to have lunch, we could hear some singing and a dog howling. Of course, Madeleine had to check it out. A man, singing, with his best friend, and making some money. Not a bad source of income. People felt that if they took a photo, they should put some money in his hat. He would sing away, the dog quite happy on his blanket with his human close by.

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Then the man would lean towards the dog, obviously the dog's signal and in this photo, you can see the dog getting ready.

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And then he would take off with the funniest howl in time to the man's music. Truly entertaining for everyone, including me, M&K.

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Lunch was here at Mistress Quickley (a character in one of Shakespeare's plays). The food was pretty good. A bit too much cheese on my omelette, but the chips were much nicer than most I've had here.

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Across the road Shakespeare's birthplace.

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Then, Madeleine wanted to have a look at the Avon river and wander across the bridges.

This photo is a bit dark. The sky looks much more threatening than it really was. But I rather like the photo. This was looking from one bridge to another along the Avon River.

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On the right of this picture is a bit of an island. I haven't been able to find out it's name, but apparently this is a bird sanctuary and is the home of the “mute swan”. This is a photo of a young one. From my research it appears as if the young cygnets have these brown feathers and when they are fully grown, become the snowy white I have seen before. I don't know what happens to the black cygnets. He/she was arguing with the duck about something in the water. I just caught the duck's bottom.

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As we were walking across the bridge, with me taking photos, we discovered we were making some rather neat shadows, so M&K started playing with the shadows and of course, Madeleine photographed their shadows. This is my favourite.

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On the other side of the river was the Butterfly Farm. That's another post for later today.

When I had finished with the butterflies, it was getting close to the time when we had to head back to the car before our parking pounds ran out. On the way back across the bridge I'd been photographing, K spotted these little guys hiding and playing in the grass.

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I even managed to get the cotton tail bottom of one of them !!

The final sight before getting to the car and heading back to Oxford was Santa.

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This really made my day.

Madeleine

Wednesday, 24 December 2008

2 comments:

Kahless said...

Hope santa brings you some lovely pressies.

And I love the dark River Avon photo too.

Rosymosie said...

Thanks Kahless, I will be seeing you soon. I've already got my main pressie, an bluetooth mouse. I knew it was coming and just grabbed it, opened it, set it up and by the time the guys got home, I was using my chrissie pressie.