Glorious Gloucestershire

It is nearly 30 years since we had a family holiday in the Cotswolds. We stayed then at a farm cottage near Evesham. So it was lovely to visit Bob's sister in her new home just outside Stroud at the weekend. Denise and Kevin made us so welcome, and we crammed an awful lot into the two days we were with them. 

I cannot remember the last time we stayed somewhere away from home - and after 3½months living in a bungalow in flat Norfolk, it was fabulous to wake in upstairs bedroom, with a view across the valley to the beautiful town of Painswick. We had a relaxed Sunday morning, driving into town after breakfast to look around the place which calls itself "The Queen of the Cotswolds"

St Mary's Parish church is set in a churchyard with 99 impressive yew trees - each with a number on it! Folktales abound - mainly to do with the devil killings off the 100th tree. 
The outline of a soldier honours those locals who died in the World Wars. - and Tilly the Church Cat has her own memorial tablet. 

We couldn't go inside, as there was a service happening.

This lovely half-timbered building at the end of the church yard had verses from the Magnificat and the Epistles painted on it. It is the lychgate where pallbearers would rest with the coffin as they awaited the priest who would conduct the funeral. The Tourist Information Office is now housed in the old Gravedigger's Hut!

They really like their art here- the former public toilets now house a small gallery, wittily named The Loovre.

Nearby the Painswick Centre, a turn of the century building in Arts and Crafts style, was one of the first to be built in reconstituted stone.

After our walk, we went to The Butcher's Arms in Sheepscombe for lunch.  This pub claims to have the 'most photographed sign in England' - the man with the beer in his hand, and a pig tied to his leg. We enjoyed a brilliant roast lunch, sitting outside in the sunshine. The men had roast beef, whilst Denise and I enjoyed a splendid nut roast. When I went inside for the loos, I was very taken with the beautiful wooden clocks on the wall, set to different times around the world. I wonder what the one bottom right [SOLD] was like!

And after lunch we went on somewhere even more interesting - but that's a whole other post