Chadlinton Home



At home

When we arrived at Linda and Philip's lovely home in Chadlington, a small town in the region known as the Cotswolds, Will and Andie immediately raced for the garden. We have a playground just out the front door of the flat in London, and have spent many hours in the parks, but there is nothing like your own garden, like running through a lawn and picking raspberries and running in and dropping them in a bowl and running back outside. That feels like home. The kids played outside, Ava picked peas from pods, and Philip and I walked through the town, past the playground, along the brook, and back again. Just like the last time we had visited their England home, in September, 2001, Linda and Philip provided the comfort of home at a time when it was keenly needed.

Apples in the shed

Saturday was a perfect day. Breakfast in the sun room, a visit to the Mill Dean garden, and then to the much anticipated Cotwold Falconry Centre. This was a truly superb experience which completely exceeded expectations. We caught the morning show (vultures, horned owl, kites, eagles), decamped to lunch, and then returned to see two more shows in the afternoon.

My favorite: the kites

Our meal at the excellent Horse and Groom pub was no doubt better than the baby chickens that the birds enjoyed (sometimes tearing their heads off - to make sure they were dead, according to the trainer!), but they didn't seem to mind. The birds were majestic, powerful, and, when it came to the black vulture Houston, who preferred nibbling my camera bag to the onerous task of flight, downright funny.

What I won't do for a chicken

We returned to the house and I took the kids for a walk. First the playground, and then we walked down the brook, attacking the many blackberry bushes along the way. They attacked back, and we sustained some stings, but also scored many berries. It doesn't get much better than that: birds of prey, a fast moving stream, blackberries, followed by a great dinner with marvelous company. Turns out life in the Cotwolds is pretty good.

Sunday morning the farmers decided to put the country in country living by dumping manure in the fields, which added a certain airborne authenticity to our breakfast of plum compote (home grown, of course) and sour cream sauce. We sniffed it in good humor, drowning it out with some good coffee and a game of Post the Most, then headed off to see one of the more offbeat tourist attractions of the area, the 600 year old dovecote. You walk past the ruins of a fine manor, cross some cow pasture, duck through a mini-door, and behond the dome-shaped former home of a few hundred doves.
Dove dome home

It sounds odd, but Ava absolutely loved it, just like Linda - the perfect hostess - knew she would. We parted ways after that, Linda off to London, us on our way to Wales, with promises to meet up in California next month. We can't wait to reciprocate the hospitality. Hopefully our garden will be up for it.

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