Uley

We lunched today at the Old Crown - sitting at the self-same table as I did before the Owlpen concert in July. The friends we met there are - I guess - used to rather more upmarket pub food than Uley provides, but I reckon it's adequate, and the atmosphere is a good deal more pubby than in most other places in the Cotswolds these days.

Afterwards, on another mild, dry afternoon, three of us walked down and across to Owlpen, calling into the church before skirting round the Manor, the most idyllic setting in Gloucestershire that I know of. We watched a newly-hatched calf stagger to its feet and make shaky progress towards the food supply.

More photobooks

It's no doubt sad to admit it, but this retiree looks forward keenly to the courier's arrival with a package containing photobooks. Four of them were for the inaugural Transylvanian Book Festival: it starts on 5th September. Having repacked them for Romania, I trotted along to our post box, but the opening was too small. And so, to the post office, where I was asked, "What's in this then?". Well, we are after all in Cheltenham, home of GCHQ.

The other photobook that came this morning was my seventh volume of blogposts (cover as above). But I'm not too happy about the reproduction of many of the photographs. Hmmm, I'm reluctant to change publisher (from Blurb), but may just look into the alternatives.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had been photographing churches: that was on my Wednesday circular walk, which started at Nympsfield. Clockwise, we followed a path down and then up into Uley, climbed steeply from St Giles' Church to Uley Bury, and then back through the woods above Frocester. Six of us this week. A lovely day for it - no rain. No landscape photography as I'd forgotten to charge my camera battery.

Sławomir Mrożek died a week ago: his obituary is in today's paper. The RSC brought to the Aldwych his play Tango, "a modern-day Hamlet", as described by Michael Coveney. It followed the playwright's exposure in the same theatre with his double bill in Peter Daubeny's 1964 World Theatre Season. (I remember those long thin instruments with earpieces we were given in order to hear the translations.) The image of Michael Williams and Robert Eddison tangoing as the curtain fell still remains with me even after 47 years.

Downham Hill

As yesterday, the mist took time to clear, but by mid-morning the sun was coming out, and from then on it's been another lovely day. Perfect for a walk in the Dursley area, which I hadn't previously explored. Going South from the little Cam and Dursley Station, it's only a couple of miles to the top of Peaked Down. From there the view opens up towards Downham Hill, just West of Uley. The remains of a smallpox isolation clinic are still apparently visible on the summit: we didn't explore. The Old Spot pub in Dursley had run out of sausages.