Jennifer gives us a wonderful glimpse into her life and the three years she spent living in the Cotswolds. Jennifer is an American married to a Brit and both were working in London. When they decided they needed a weekend getaway, the bought a 200-year-old cottage in a Cotswolds village and joined the “weekenders” from London.

I really enjoyed this book, not just for the details about the Cotswolds but also for the look at her life as she writes about marriage, career and how to live. Jennifer and her husband were making some big life decisions including whether or not to have children.

Jennifer goes into wonderful detail about life in the Cotswolds. Even though I live in the Cotswolds (we just passed our three year anniversary of living here), I learned a lot.

Questions

I asked Jennifer a couple of questions about living in the Cotswolds.

Pauline: Do many Brits working and living in London have weekend countryside getaways?

Jennifer: I don’t know a statistical answer, but judging by those My Perfect Weekend-type interviews you often find at the back of UK newspapers, one certainly gets that impression! The people who appear in such pieces are always getting out of town to their country places come Friday night. In our Cotswold town weekenders were, in fact, the exception rather than the rule. I think that weekenders may seem more prominent than they are simply because their cars, apparel, and/or the volume of their conversations often make them stand out. And, I suspect, because locals secretly enjoy having something to complain about, they may exaggerate the nature of the “problem.”

Pauline: What do you see as the differences between rural life in the US and in England?

Jennifer: It’s a bit hard for me to comment on this one because I have always lived in suburban or urban spots in the US. I have, however, lived in the deep South in the US and noticed that Gloucestershire has a number of similarities. These include good manners, conservative political views, and bumper stickers about guns (“Toot if you shoot” was often spotted in our favorite Cotswold pub parking lot). One major difference is that, despite being politically to the right, the Cotswold population seems to be much more conservation-oriented — dare I say green, even — than their political counterparts in the US. Another difference is that you would never see an evangelical megachurch in the Cotswolds, not that I want to give the C of E any ideas about boosting its flagging membership.

Press Release

Jennifer Richardson is an American Anglophile who spent three years living in the heart of The Cotswolds, England, after she and her British husband bought a two-hundred-year-old cottage on a whim. A picturesque network of hamlets, villages, and market towns in southwest England, The Cotswolds is well known for its honey-colored stone cottages, stately homes, and stunning scenery. Jennifer and her husband hoped for an escape from their London lives, but instead, their decision about whether or not to have a child played out against a backdrop of village fêtes, rural rambles, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed.

Part memoir, part travelogue, and interspersed with field guides to narrative-related Cotswold walks, Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage (She Writes Press/ May 2013/ $15.95) by Jennifer Richardson, begins with the simultaneous purchase of their Cotswold cottage and the ill-advised decision to tell Jennifer’s grandchild-hungry parents that she is going to try to have a baby. Just when she is settling into English country life, she is forced to confront not only her ambivalence about the idea of motherhood, but an attack of non-alcohol-related slurring that turns out to be the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

Resources

• An American in the Cotswolds – Jennifer’s blog.
• Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage – buy the book on Amazon. Kindle version is available.

We looked for vacation rentals in Beaune but the ones we found were expensive. We looked at places in nearby villages and decided to rent a farmhouse a 10 minute drive from Beaune, near Meursault. By this time our friend Shannon had joined our group, so we found a well-priced three-bedroom house.

Chris flew from California into Lyon, met Shannon who had been traveling in Europe, picked up a rental car and drove the two hours to the house. They picked up groceries at the Carrefour on the northern edge of Beaune. Steve and I flew from Heathrow into Lyon, arriving in the early evening and driving the last part in the dark. As we were driving out of Lyon airport in the last bit of daylight, I was wondering why I had booked us on such a late flight, but it must have been the ticket price. We arrived late but Shannon had a lovely dinner waiting for us!

We stayed in a farmhouse in a village near Meursault

We rented a 3 bedroom farmhouse in a village near Meurseult.

The house was beautiful – a renovated stone barn with spacious rooms, high ceilings, beautiful bathrooms, good privacy for everyone and lots of space. It had lovely outdoor areas and no swimming pool (which was what we wanted, because you pay a lot more for a house with a pool). I had some complaints about the house (kitchen equipment was not great), but overall it was a good vacation rental. The location was good – on a quiet lane, in a small village, five minute drive to Meursault, ten minutes to Beaune.

Beautiful villages in the Côte de Beaune

The Côte d’Or is divided into two areas: the Côte de Beaune includes Beaune and the towns to the south, and the Côte de Nuits, which includes the towns north of Beaune towards Dijon. On our first day, Sunday, we explored our area – the Côte de Beaune.

First we went to Meursault, a nice village with two bakeries, a couple of cafes and a couple of restaurants. On several mornings we got our bread and croissants here. Next we went into Beaune and had lunch in a café – our first French meal of the trip! We sat outside on the edge of a pretty square. It was sunny and warm, the omelet was perfect and the area crowded with people out for Sunday lunch.

We walked around the town, leaving the main sights to be seen another day, then drove south to see the vineyards and the wine towns. We stopped in Pommard for wine tasting and then drove on to St Romain, where we walked around the remains of a Roman village. We drove a few more of the pretty roads of the area and then headed back “home”.

Let me mention at this point that our group divided into two wine enthusiasts (Chris and Shannon) and two walking enthusiasts (me and Steve). When one group did wine tasting, the other went for a walk. You may wonder why non-wine enthusiasts chose to visit Burgundy. Well, I knew it was a wine region, but I did not realize it was such a significant wine region. In hindsight it seems silly for us to visit such a famous wine area when we hardly drink, and don’t like red wine, but the villages and countryside are beautiful as a result of the prosperous wine trade, so we benefited from it being a wine region. And you don’t have to like wine to appreciate the beauty of the vineyards.

Autun, a Gallo-Roman town

One of the two remaining Roman gates.

On Monday we drove to Nolay because the guidebooks and tourist brochures talk about the wonderful Monday market and the beautiful medieval town. The market was two stalls and the medieval town was cute but not as nice as our nearby Meursault. We pushed on south-east to Autun.

Autun, population around 15,000, was founded in the 1st century by the Roman emperor Augustus. We spent most of the day there, visiting the church, having lunch, walking around the town, finding the remains of the Roman town.

The cathedral, St Lazare’s, is Romanesque, built in the early twelfth century. Outside is an impressive stone carved Tympanum of The Last Judgment. Inside are stone carved capitals showing Biblical scenes (these were fascinating). The Roman remains are an outdoor theater, still in use today, two large gates and the remains of the Temple of Janus outside the town.

I really liked Autun. It is a good size, with interesting restaurants, cafes and shops and is on the edge of what looks like a good hiking area. We will probably return to this area.

Beautiful villages in the Côte de Nuits

On Tuesday we split up in to two groups. Chris and Shannon did a driving tour of the Côte de Nuits. They said this wine area north of Beaune was different from the area we had explored together on Sunday because the wineries and towns do not offer as much casual wine tasting. The more famous, and expensive, wineries are in this area – the “Grand Crus”.

Chris writes: “We had lunch in Gevrey-Chambertin at a great place called Chez Guy.  Since we had wine with lunch, we didn’t do any other tasting that day – we were driving.  We stopped and paid our respects to the chateau at Clos de Vougeot, although without being on a tour we couldn’t get past the gift shop.”

Steve and I spent the afternoon in Beaune. One of the “things to do” in Beaune is to walk the town ramparts – like Lucca in Italy! Well, not exactly. The walls around Lucca are spectacular. The walls around Beaune are pretty in a couple of spots, boring in other spots and it only takes 30 minutes to walk around. But the town itself is very interesting so we walked there after our too short walk on the ramparts. The historic center is large and beautiful. There is a large main shopping area and several beautiful squares. The town is busy with tourists but does not feel overrun.

The weather so far had been sunny and warm, even hot, but on Tuesday it was overcast and in the evening there was a big rain storm.

Mustard in Dijon

We had a great lunch in this vegetarian-friendly restaurant.

Wednesday was our day in Dijon. It was a quick drive and parking was easy to find. We had checked the map and made note of the names of the parking lots closest to the center and then followed the signs when driving in. There is some construction going on in the center of Dijon and some of the main roads were torn up.

Dijon is a lovely city and deserves more than the day trip we gave it. We saw only a few things there and I have it on my list to return to for a city visit.

We went to Notre Dame, a church built in the 13th century, with an Italianate facade that has 51 pseudo-gargoyles from the 19th century (the originals were destroyed in the 13th century).

We had lunch at La Causerie des Mondes (16 rue Vauban near the Palais de Justice, closed Sunday, Monday), a vegetarian-friendly restaurant that I found on www.visitdijon.com. It was a small restaurant with a simple menu but great food, located in a beautiful historic building, in the center of town.

Next was the Museum of Beaux Arts. Great collection of art (we did not get to see everything) in a beautiful, historic building.

Museum of Beaux Arts, Dijon

There are two famous tombs in this museum, both from the 15th century – Philip the Bold and John the Fearless. Neither were on display because the room they are in is being restored. The tombs both have “mourners” – small stone statues of monks on all sides of the tomb. The mourners for John the Fearless are traveling in the US and Europe, but the 41 mourners for Philip the Bold are on display. Each mourner is about a foot high and very detailed (all are different). They were lined up in glass cases so you could look at each one in detail. They were incredible! Both tombs, with the mourners back in place, will be back on display in Summer 2013.

After the museum we walked the streets, looked at the beautiful medieval buildings, went to the Maille shop (can’t go to Dijon without getting mustard), and bought tea towels (I love French tea towels). By late afternoon it was starting to rain so we raced to the car and drove home.

Most days we had lunch out and dinner back at the house. All of us are cooking enthusiasts (especially Chris and Shannon), so we had some good meals. The house was comfortable for hanging around in the evening – except that the DVD player did not work and I had brought some movies for us to watch. We were forced into conversation, reading guidebooks to prepare for the next day and going for evening strolls. Not so bad.

A day in Beaune

Shannon had to work in the morning so Chris, Steve and I went to nearby Meursault for coffee and a walk. The village is surrounded by vineyards. Lanes go up into the vineyards, so you can walk or drive for miles through them.

We all spent the afternoon in Beaune. Beaune is a nice sized small town with a population around 20,000. There are several parking lots near the center of town. Lots of restaurants, cafes and shops – plus wine tasting (this is the center of the Côte d’Or region). We went into the Hotel Dieu, the historic building with a multi-colored tile roof that you see on all the tourist information for the area. It was a hospital built in the 15th century and remained a working hospital until 1971. The best part is the exterior where you see the tile roof but you cannot see this from the street. You have to pay to enter the courtyard (well worth it) and then tour through the buildings.

We were all in love with the large Carefour grocery store and visited several times. It is fun to look at everything – very different from our grocery shops in England and the US.

The Burgundy Canal and Fontenay Abbey

Burgundy Canal

On Friday Chris and Shannon went for a drive south from Beaune, ending up in Chalon sur Saone. Steve and I drove to the Burgundy canal and walked along the towpath for an hour and a half The canal comes down from Montbard to Pont d’Ouche, then makes a sharp turn north for Dijon. We joined it just past this point at Veuvey-sur-Ouche, where it is in a quiet part of the countryside. The walk was delightful. The village we walked to did not have a restaurant and the one restaurant at Veuvey did not look interesting, so we drove north hoping to find something. It was getting late (near the 2pm deadline for lunch in France) so we stopped near the autoroute at a French restaurant chain, Courtepaille. This is a “grill” restaurant but they had a good vegetarian plate. Steve had grilled fish.

After lunch we continued north to Fontenay Abbey. We drove by Semur-en-Auxois, where we had considered staying when we were planning the trip, but did not have time to stop. From the road it looked beautiful – medieval walls surrounding stone buildings – like a Tuscan hill town. We had to choose between Semur and Fontenay and I thought we really did not have enough time for Semur, so we drove on.

Fontenay Abbey was well worth the drive. It is a former Cistercian monastery, founded in 1118 and built in the Romanesque style. The grounds are large and beautiful. The setting in a valley north of Montbard is peaceful. In England we live near the ruins of a Cistercian abbey (Hailes Abbey in Winchcombe). We love Hailes Abbey but it is nothing compared to Fontenay. Hailes Abbey is a ruin. Fontenay looks like it did when the monks lived there.

The drive back home took an hour and a half but was on uncrowded autoroute and went quickly. We had a good last night dinner with our group. This day was a lovely end to our week in Burgundy.

End of our week

On Saturday we all hit the road. Chris and Shannon drove to Lyon to return the car and take the train to Nice. Shannon spent a night in Nice, then flew to Venice to start one of her GrapeHops tours. Chris stayed in Nice for another week and a half.

We drove north and spent a week in Normandy. After that we returned the car at Charles De Gaulle Airport, took a taxi into Paris and spent three nights in the Bastille area visiting friends who were spending a few weeks in Paris (Doron and Josette, SlowTrav friends). Then we flew back to Heathrow from Paris.

I would like to return to Burgundy. For our next trip I would stay in Semur-en-Auxois and spend a couple of days exploring the town. Another day trip to Dijon (or maybe a few nights there at the start of the trip). Another day trip to Autun and a day hiking in the Morvan Regional National Park west of Autun. A long walk along the Burgundy Canal near Montbard. Another trip to Fontenay Abbey. Sounds like a plan!

Resources

• Michelin Green Guide – Burgundy Jura: A good guidebook for this area (Amazon.com).

Photos

I posted photos on Slow Europe, but you can see a summary of our trip in the photo gallery below.

• Slow Europe Travel Photos – Autun
• Slow Europe Travel Photos – Dijon
• Slow Europe Travel Photos – Fontenay Abbey

Photo Gallery

Beautiful day on the Cotswold Way above Edge

This was our third summer in the Cotswolds. We moved here in May 2010. Our first summer was beautiful with hardly any rain, many warm sunny days and even some hot days. We moved here for the hiking and that first summer was a dream come true. Most days we packed a lunch and headed out on the endless footpaths. We hiked along rivers, through meadows, across farm fields. On hot days we walked in the woods.

That fall was nice and the winter mild. We kept hiking all year.

Our second summer, 2011, was also very good. Most Brits consider “summer” to be the school holidays which are in August. In 2011 we had great weather from May to July, but there was rain in August, so it was declared a “bad summer”. For us it was a pretty good summer, again with lots of hiking, lots of picnics.

In October we moved to our new house in Painswick and did even more hiking in the fall and winter because the weather was mild and several hiking trails start right from our house.

In spring 2012 we found out why we thought the weather was perfect in England – southern England had been in drought conditions for two years, the two years that we had been living here. Hosepipe bans were declared in the south east, warnings given for our area, the south west. Then, on April 1, after we arrived back from a short trip to the US and Canada, the rain started. Within a month the hosepipe bans were lifted. England was no longer in drought and the reservoirs were full.

I think it rained continuously in April, but I don’t really remember because I had a bad chest infection and was ill for most of the month. This was my body’s reaction to the change in weather. For the next months it rained a lot but we had a good warm week of sunshine each month. One week of glorious weather in England makes up for three weeks of overcast and rain, almost.

“Sitting in an english garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don’t come, you get a tan
From standing in the english rain.”
I Am The Walrus, Beatles, 1967

We kept hiking, but trying to avoid the rain (detailed weather forecasts helped). One day while walking on the Cotswold Way near Haresfield we stopped to talk to a man from London who was doing the 100 walk from Chipping Campden to Bath. It had been a very wet week but he talked about the benefits of hiking in the rain – the fresh air, the beauty of the woods in rain, the soothing sound of the rain. It was a mind opening conversation for me.

Before we moved here, we came to the Cotswolds on vacation in spring for several years. We always hiked with rain gear and expected, and frequently got, downpours or drizzle.  For our first month living in England we kept up the old habits, always carrying rain jackets and backpack covers. Eventually we realized that it never rained, so we stowed away the rain gear. On the occasional wet days, we didn’t hike. Our rain jackets stayed in the back of the closet for two years!

Mud on the Cotswold Way near Cranham in July

But the wet weather had returned and we were pretending otherwise. It was time to adjust to the new reality. I found our rain jackets, rain trousers, backpack covers and we went back to hiking in the rain. The man from London was right, it was delightful.

Delightful until months of rain resulted in mud like I have never experienced before. We no longer avoided the rain, but we had to try to avoid the mud. Walking trails that are also bridle paths are bad because the horses chew up the trails making perfect conditions for rain to form puddles and mud. There is frequently a lot of mud at the entrance to a field of cows. For some reason the gates into a field are where the cows like to congregate and all those hooves create perfect conditions for mud.

Walking from Winchcombe to Hailes Abbey

You find the worst mud in fields of grain right after a rain storm. The dirt turns to a wet, concrete-like glue that attaches to your boots and splatters up your legs.

We had a friend visiting in August and took her on a short walk from Winchcombe to Hailes Abbey. Half way there, at the edge of a field of wheat, the rain started to pour down. We sheltered under a tree, had a nice conversation with a woman from Holland walking the opposite direction, waited for the storm to pass, and then continued our walk. The field was almost impossible to get through. Our boots where thick with mud. We were mud splattered and soaking wet. Winchcombe is a “Walkers are Welcome” town so after the walk I insisted we would be welcome in a tea room. I was wrong. The three of us stood dripping inside the tea room door, asking if there was a table, attracting a lot of attention – and they asked us to leave!

We had a different version of this experience years ago at The Bell in Sapperton, when we asked if we were too wet to come in and they said “Nonsense!” and pointed us to a table and a place to put our backpacks. Then they gave us a very good lunch. Maybe in Winchcombe they were at their wits end after a very wet summer and too many very wet walkers. Too bad, because what we really needed was tea and cake and a dry place to sit. We went back to the car, changed out of our boots, toweled off a bit and then went to another place where we had coffee and cake.

We ended up having a good walking summer after we realized that we had to adapt to the rain and mud. The cooler temperatures made the walking pleasant. We increased the number of days we walked and the lengths of our walks. We aren’t doing the 10 hour walking days that many people do on the long distance trails but two hours is our usual walk several days a week and we like to do a four to five hour walk once a week.

In August we booked a cottage on the Dorset coast two days ahead when we could see there was going to be a sunny week. We had a lovely week in Bridport and went swimming twice.

A warm, sunny Indian summer arrived in September just as we left for two and a half weeks in France, where we also had good weather. Towards the end of September, just before we got home, torrential rain hit with parts of England receiving a month’s worth of rain in a day. I had been hoping to return to dry footpaths, and maybe they did dry out in September, but the mud is back again.

Here’s hoping for a dry fall and mild winter. And fingers crossed for next summer!

Resources

• Cotswolder – Winchcombe
• Heavy rain causes chaos as summer confirmed as wettest in 100 years, The Guardian, August 30, 2012
• Britain gets almost a month of rain in 24 hours, The Guardian, September 24, 2012

Flags and Bunting

Bunting everywhere. Long lines of traffic in and out of Stroud. Empty shelves at the Waitrose. Endless TV specials about the Royal Family. It must be the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend (celebrating the Queen’s 60 years as Monarch).

I wish I could get more excited about this, but after living here for two years I have decided that I am not one of the 70% who want to keep the Monarchy. I really don’t see the point. In England someone who does not support the Monarchy is called a Republican, but for obvious reasons from my American background, I just cannot call myself that.

I will participate in some of the events this Jubilee weekend but I won’t go so far as to cover the house in bunting. The photo above shows flags and bunting from a couple of weeks ago when the Olympic Torch passed through our village (the torch is there in that photo, but you can’t see it). The amount of bunting has grown since and now Painswick is looking very festive.

Bunting? I had never heard of it before we moved to England. A string of triangles (sometimes small flags) stretched across the front of a house, or above a window or along a wall. You can see some in the photo. You can purchase cheap plastic bunting, or expensive beautiful bunting, or make it yourself. I had planned on knitting some, but then we got a streak of hot weather and I forgot about it. It doesn’t have to be patriotic – it can just be pretty.

A Four-Day Weekend

Usually there are two Bank Holidays (long weekends) in May – one at the beginning and one at the end. This year they moved the second one a week later to the first weekend of June. Then they added a second Bank Holiday for Tuesday. The Royal Family gave us an extra day off! On the news they are already blaming the four-day weekend for the recession, I guess because sales of bunting and flags won’t keep the UK economy going.

The Big Jubilee Lunch

The main day of festivities is Sunday. Our village celebrations start with a church service (of course), then a group photo of everyone in the village in front of the church, then a picnic lunch in the churchyard (bring your own lunch). After lunch the village is providing a Jubilee Cake for everyone. There will be music and other live entertainment and Jubilee medals will be handed out to all school children.

At 3pm the church bells will ring, as part of a nationwide Jubilee ringing of bells across the country.

While the Big Jubilee Lunch is going on in towns and villages across the country, the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant happens in London. From 2pm – 6pm over 1,000 boats will parade on the River Thames in London, from Battersea Bridge to Tower Bridge. It will be the largest flotilla ever assembled on the Thames.

Cold and Wet?

Last Week on Minchinhampton Commons

The last time I looked at the weather forecast it was cold and wet for Sunday. We just had a week and a half of beautiful sunny and hot weather. Today it is overcast and colder but still nice. By Sunday the temperature is dropping another 10 degrees F. But, the weather forecast changes all the time here – lets hope for sun!

Beacons of Fire Across the Country

On Monday the big events are a concert in London followed by the Diamond Jubilee Beacons. I assume that a beacon is just a fire and that some are on hilltops. At 10:30pm the Queen will light the National Beacon in London. Then over 4,000 beacons will be lite across England and some of the Commonwealth countries.

The Painswick Beacon is on a high hill just outside of town, but it was decided that the area is too fragile so our beacon fire will be further down the hill. (BBC News – Jubilee beacon will not be lit on Painswick Beacon.)

Let the Diamond Jubilee festivities begin! And then – onwards towards the Olympics!

April sunshine in 2011

At the start of April, the MET Office announced that most of the south of England was officially in drought. Watering restrictions (hose pipe bans) were implemented in the south east counties.

It turns out that England has been in a drought since we arrived. Friends in the US ask me how can I stand the weather in England, picturing a constant downpour of rain. It does not rain as much here as it does in Vancouver, Canada where we use to live. The winters are milder than in Santa Fe. Here it snows once or twice and they think an inch of snow is a disaster, whereas in Santa Fe I remember Steve shoveling our roof because there was so much snow we thought it might collapse.

Overall, I like the weather here. We can hike year round. Some times of the year it is muddier than I would like, but walking through the fields after a heavy rainfall is delightful. The main problem with the weather is the inconsistency – you never know what it is going to be like. Last summer we had friends visit in June, which the year before had been sunny and hot, but last year was cold and wet. Another friend visited in July and, thank goodness, we had a few brilliant days, but the rest of the time was overcast and drizzly. No one visited when it was sunny and hot for all of April and September.

It is no wonder I think the weather is good – we have been in a drought the whole time we have been here!

Even in a drought, the ground is moist. In Santa Fe the ground is hard and dry, nearly impossible to dig and loose dirt blows around in the spring winds. In England the dirt is dark and damp and has a rich smell. I used to think I was smelling mold but then I realized it was the smell of the outdoors – earthy, moist. Maybe it is because we are on a small island, surrounded by water, criss-crossed by rivers – water everywhere – that the ground stays constantly moist.

Spring hiking in Boulder

No sooner was the drought announced than it started raining, and raining, and raining. We went back to the US at the end of March and missed the one week of hot, sunny weather here. We arrived back to a month of rain. Today it is pouring and the wind is howling and the MET has announced flood warnings. We live in a house beside a river that flooded in the  July 2007 Cotswold flood. The upside is we have a new kitchen on the lower level because the old one was destroyed by the flood waters; the downside is obvious. (But rentals are scarce here and we figured what are the chances of a 100 year flood happening twice in a decade? Hmm … )

Every day I look at the weather forecast for the week. Seven days of rain, temperatures in the 50s. Occasionally a picture of sun with rain. Then I look at Santa Fe – sun and 70s. Paris – rain (that makes me feel better). And Northern Portugal because we are going there in July – rain. April was a rainy month for much of Europe.

We have friends from Canada arriving next weekend. The forecast is saying rain. May 1 is on Tuesday – please bring us May Flowers!!

Resources

MET Office – UK’s National Weather Service

England is a small and crowded island, with a population of 51 million and a density of 1023 people per square mile.* It is the second most densely populated country in Europe (Malta is first), and it is densest where we are in the south. Everything has to be smaller so that it will all fit. The cars are smaller, the roads are narrower, the houses are smaller, things have less space between them.

The only way that I have come up with to describe the differences is to start with a model of an American small town and then turn it into an English village.

Create a Model of an American Small Town

Get out your lego pieces. Make a grid. Put down rows of houses on straight roads. Each house sits in the middle of its property and has a driveway, a garage, a front yard and a back yard. Main Street in the center of town has the shops. Let’s ignore the hideous box stores and strip malls for now (we have those here too). The town sprawls out and ends, then the countryside begins. If you are lucky there is a National Forest or State Park outside town for hiking, or some good parks in town.

Now, let’s turn this American small town into an English village.

Transform the American Houses to English Cottages

Village Street

The average house size in England is 800 square feet. You get a small kitchen with an under the counter fridge. No laundry room because the washing machine is in the kitchen. Forget the clothes dryer, we hang our clothes on racks that spend a day or two in a hallway or near a sunny window. There will be a dining room if you are lucky, or maybe an eat-in kitchen – or you may have to squeeze a small table into a corner of the living room (which they call a lounge). The bedrooms are smaller than American bedrooms. What they call a “single”, I call a “closet”.

Now you have the typical English cottage, but we are not finished. Stretch it up to three levels. Remember this island is small so the houses must have a small footprint. There are houses on one level (bungalows), but most houses are two, three, even four levels. Make the staircases narrow and steep because you don’t want to waste too much floor space on them. (You have to have healthy knees to live in an English cottage.)

Change the American Town into Villages Scattered Around a Town

Painswick, a village in the Cotswolds

Next we change the layout of the town. In your model divide the town into segments. One segment will be the larger town, the rest will be villages.

Create your first village. Wrap your hands around a group of houses and streets and squeeze them all together into the center. You get a heap of houses surrounded by green space.

The houses are no longer in nice rows – four or five of them may be lined up and attached (a terrace). Sometimes two stick together (semi-detached). Occasionally one falls into its own space (detached). Frequently they jumble together so that you have to go through the garden of one house to get to the house behind. Instead of each house having a good sized front and back yard, some have gardens, some have small courtyards, some have no garden. Hardly any of them end up with a driveway and a garage – waste of space anyway when you can park on the street.

A few houses fall back the way they started – detached house, garage, driveway, front and back gardens. These are the 1980s housing estates built on the edges of English towns and villages. Driving through these areas I feel like I am back in the US (except these houses are much smaller than you find in US neighborhoods).

During this transformation the roads become narrow, usually one lane. Maybe a little wider to let everyone park their cars. Driving on roads in villages is always a challenge – you dodge and weave your way down a street.

Create the rest of your villages and then the town, which is just a slightly larger version of a village. What you end up with is a dense small town, surrounded by countryside and dense villages. Villages back onto farm fields or woods or open common land. No matter where you live in a village, you are close to the countryside.

The Special Ingredient – The Countryside and Public Access to Private Land

And that is what makes all the difference in the English village – the proximity to rural life. Sheep, cows and horses grazing in some fields, crops growing in others. Large areas of protected woodland. Working farms outside the villages.

The countryside is crisscrossed by footpaths. Some of them go along rivers or through protected woodlands, others go through farm fields. We have walked on some footpaths that go right into someone’s garden and out the other side. I am waiting to find a footpath that goes through someone’s house!

England’s “public access to private land” means you can live close to your neighbors but be walking in beautiful countryside in a few minutes. You don’t have to own your piece of the countryside, it is there for us all to use.

My English Village

Our house is in a group of five attached houses. Its footprint is small because the house is on three levels (one and half rooms per level). We are on the edge of a village with farm fields and woodland outside our front door. We put on our hiking boots and head out on the miles of trails. When we get bored with these trails we drive over to the next valley.

Instead of living in a small town like Santa Fe and driving through town to different neighborhoods, I drive through farmlands to the next village. Or to town. I drive to the Waitrose in Stroud for groceries. For the Post Office or to pickup a newspaper I walk up the hill to the center of my village. The best bakery is in Nailsworth. For afternoon tea we go to Minchinhampton. If I need something from a department store like Marks and Spencer, I drive to Cheltenham. Everything is within a 30 minute drive.

The reason that we are living in an English village, instead of an American small town, is the access to the footpaths and walking trails. We used to vacation here for a couple of weeks each year, just to go walking. Now we are lucky enough to go walking year-round. The sun just came out – time to put on our boots and go for a walk!

Notes

We spent 20 years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Santa Fe is as close to a European small town as you get in the US – it is a few hundred years old with neighborhoods of historic houses, the center of town does not have high-rise buildings but is a collection of historic buildings around a plaza (like the “piazza” in Italy or the “village green” in England), houses are jumbled together and many of the roads are narrow. Our house in Santa Fe was historic and small, probably about the same as the one we are in now, but on one level. And we had a driveway and a garage. We had good access to hiking trails in the Santa Fe National Forest, which was close by, but nothing like the amount and variety of trails that we have here.

* From Wikipedia – England, 395 people per square kilometer (1 square mile = 2.58998811 square kilometres).

BBC Radio 4

When we lived in the US I listened to NPR a lot, and even though I still catch some of my favorite programs via Podcast, I have turned into a total BBC Radio 4 junkie. I have a radio in the kitchen and if I am in there, Radio 4 is on. I even time my cooking to listen to The Archers at 7:03 every night (except Saturday).

In the US I listened to NPR when driving but driving here is so intense that only in the last few months have I become relaxed enough to have the radio on.

Listen to BBC Radio Online or by Podcast

Radio Podcasts are not restricted by location as BBC TV is – just go into iTunes and subscribe or go to the Radio 4 website to listen online or download podcasts.

BBC Radio 4: Listen online, download podcasts, read about their shows.

Quiz Shows are an Excuse for Comedy

Many British comedy shows, on TV and Radio, are presented in a quiz show format. My favorite Radio 4 show is Friday Night Comedy – The News Quiz which is a group of comedians talking about the week’s news events. But listen closely, they are on teams and the host Sandi Toksvig is keeping score. No one really cares about the scores but the winner is declared at the end.

My favorite BBC Radio 4 Shows

• Friday Night Comedy – Comedy related to the week’s new events. There are two formats: The News Quiz and The Now Show.
• Just a Minute – Panelists have to talk on a topic without repetition or hesitation. Way more interesting than it sounds.
• Broadcasting House – Sunday morning news show.
• Desert Island Discs – Interviews based on picking music they would want if stranded on a desert island.

BBC iPlayer

One of the many things that I like about living in England is the television. The BBC produces great dramas, comedies and news shows. Every household pays a TV license  (£145.50 per year) which pays for the BBC, so you have public ownership of the part of the media.There are four BBC channels, creatively named One, Two, Three and Four. People tell me that each has a different “flavor” of show, but I have not figured it out yet.

There are other channels that are not part of the BBC – ITV, Channel Four, Channel 5 (not to be confused with BBC Four and BBC Five).

Most of the British TV channels have websites where you can watch the shows if you missed them when they were broadcast. But, you can’t watch them online if you don’t live in the United Kingdom. Unless you use a VPN.

Use a VPN to Watch British TV in the US

The British TV websites check your location by your IP address and block their online programs if you are coming onto the internet from a location outside of the United Kingdom. The same happens if you are in the UK and want to watch US programs online. A message pops up telling you that programs are not available in your area.

There is a simple solution – run a VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your computer. This lets you go onto the Internet through one of their gateways, giving you a IP address from the location you choose and “fooling” the TV websites. This works for any websites that check your location before delivering content.

I use WiTopia Personal VPN Basic for $49.99/year. The software is easy to install. When you want to be online with a different IP location, you start their software and choose the city to login from. I login to Los Angeles to watch the Daily Show online. When in the US I login to London to watch the BBC iPlayer. There are other VPNs available, and some are free, but I have been happy with WiTopia.

The VPN does not affect how your computer works. You go online through your Internet provider and then login to your VPN to change your IP address. Watch the shows on your computer or connect your computer to your TV set with an HDMI cable.

Websites for British TV

• BBC iPlayer – Watch shows online (streaming) or download iPlayer software which lets you download shows to your computer and keep them for a limited time (so you can watch offline).
• Channel 4 OD (On Demand) – They show a lot of US series on this channel but they also produce British series. The real estate show Location, Location, Location is on Channel Four.
• ITV Player – You can watch some of the really crappy British TV on ITV, but they also produced the very popular (and somewhat crappy but still very watchable) Downton Abbey.
• Channel 5 Demand5 – More crappy British TV.

Great Shows to Watch

Most shows are available online for a week or two after they are broadcast in the UK.

• BBC One is currently showing Birdsong, a two part drama based on the book by Sebastian Faulks.
• On BBC Four we are nearing the end of Borgen, a Danish drama (English subtitles) by the people who brought The Killing. You can still watch this online. It is a great political drama. Click the Episode Guide to see the shows available online.
• Channel 4 OD is showing The Fabulous Baker Brothers, an excellent cooking show featuring the owner of our local Hobbs Bakery!

Follow Slow Europe on Facebook – I post when good shows are broadcast.

This Is Not How It Should Be

Eventually media companies will stop blocking online visitors from other countries. It is kind of crazy that we have to do this to get access.

How We Watch TV in The UK

Cable TV is not as available here as it is in the US. Some larger cities have it but most of us use Freeview or subscribe to SKY TV.

• Freeview comes either through your antenna or a satellite and, as the name implies, is free. No monthy fee. You receive all the BBC channels, ITV, Channel 4,Channel 5 and more.
• Sky TV is owned by Rupert Murdoch. If you subscribe to SKY, they put a satellite on your roof and give you an SKY box with a digital recorder (similar to Comcast in the US but not as good as TIVO). Their SKY Atlantic channel gets all the US HBO and Showtime series – but we see them with commericials! The shows arrive here six months to a year after they broadcast in the US.

Just Days After the States

I have seen this in advertisements for US TV shows. For example “Watch House just days after the States”. Most good US TV shows get here eventually but some of the really popular ones arrive almost immediately. In March we will be watching the new season of Mad Men “just days after the states”.

Painswick, Queen of the Cotswolds

We spent much of this year looking at houses for rent. We had not intended to stay longer than a year in the first cottage we rented, but we ended up staying a year and a half because we could not find something that we liked better.

I came to England with a North American sensibility towards housing. It did not matter that I had stayed in many vacation rentals on many vacations. I did not understand housing here – how people live, what you can expect in a house and a location, the types of places available. It took me six months of looking at rental houses to figure it out.

We found a good rental and moved in October. We are in a new village (Painswick), a new valley (Painswick Valley) and a very different type of house (in a converted mill complex beside the river). All this change and we are only 10 miles north of where we lived before. The views are not as good, but the walking trails are better. We are further from Bath, but closer to Cheltenham.

View of Painswick from our favorite walking trail

Renting a house in the Cotswolds is all about compromise. Okay, I barely fit into the shower and I have to walk up two flights of stairs from the front door to the bedroom, but I have a parking space! I live with the constant noise of a waterfall that 100 years ago drove the machinery in the mill, but I am a mile from the nearest busy road (not that I could hear the traffic anyway, over that waterfall). My neighbors are an inch away on both sides, but I have a lovely garden that gets the sun!

We moved from a furnished rental to an unfurnished house. This explains why I have not been writing any blog posts – I have been shopping. We have a household of furniture now, but it is a bit sparse, which is nice and makes it easier to clean. We went for a combination of Ikea (cheap), John Lewis (expensive), antiques (well priced compared to the US), used furniture (good value) and charity shop things (cheap). Our walls are decorated with paintings and interesting framed things loaned by a friend. On these dreary winter days we sit in a living room with thick stone walls, windows on three sides and a gas fireplace. Very comfortable. When the weather clears, we put on our boots and walk out through the fields and woods.

I have a lot more to say about what I learned during this search and will be posting more in the new year.

But for now – Happy New Year!! – can you believe it will be 2012?

Most days we had breakfast at the farmhouse. Some mornings Chris got up early and buzzed out to the nearest bakery for croissants! I made coffee the first morning but it was so bad that Chris was forced to take over and we had good coffee every morning after that. (In my defence, I think I just measured wrong.) Every morning we went somewhere, did something, had a nice lunch sitting outside (except one day when it rained – we ate inside), did something else, then went back to the lovely farmhouse. In the evening we made dinner together. One night we went out for pizza. Considering that we were one foodie (Chris) and two fussey eaters (I am a vegetarian and Steve is sort of but not quite), we all ate very well, and had some very good wine.

We did not consult any restaurant lists or look for recommendations. We planned what we wanted to do each day and when it was around 1pm we stopped and looked at a few restaurant menus, then chose what suited us best. Click on the first photo and walk your way through our week of lunches.

Our Schedule

Friday – Morning coffee and croissant in Condom, lunch in Condom in a restaurant near the church.
Saturday – Lunch in Montreal near Seviac Roman Villa.
Sunday – Lunch in Vic Fezensac between searches for Roman Towers.
Monday – Lunch on a rainy day in Eauze.
Tuesday – Mid-morning coffee and lunch at the market in Fleurance. Pizza for dinner in Condom.
Wednesday – Our last day was hot so we stayed close to home. Lunch on the patio. Dinner on the patio.

How fast a week goes! And we did a lot more than just eat.

We spent the week at Au Chicot, a beautiful farmhouse in the countryside near Condom. The house is beautiful and spacious. The views are stunning. The location is very good – just 10 mins drive into Condom (we loved this town) and close to many other interesting towns and sites. Highly recommended.