Back to Bath

A fortnight after our brief break in Bath, I was there again yesterday. It was wet, not a day for photography, but in a lull on my way back to the station I spotted this sign: is it soliciting customers or warning them of the presence of a latter-day Demon Barber?

The purpose of my visit was another lunchtime meeting and talk. Turkey was on the agenda, but not on the menu. David Logan, formerly our ambassador in Istanbul, speaks with beguiling lack of emphasis, but no wasted words. He mapped out for us the complex, not to say intractable, set of relationships between Turks and four sorts of Kurds: we also glimpsed behind the scenes within Turkey itself, a country clearly not to be ignored.

19 of us attended, one of the ancillary pleasures being meeting people of differing backgrounds: I sat next to another former ambassador (to Chile), who also worked for many years in Geneva on arms control. He argues strongly now against all armed intervention in either Iraq or Syria.

With Caroline away in France this week, I was given supper by friends on Tuesday: for Trishe's birthday, Christopher was getting her Gerry Hughes' new book, Cry of Wonder, so I thought I'd have a look at it in Bath's elegant Waterstones. I couldn't find it, and on the train home I saw in the paper that its author had just died. RIP.

He was a gentle, shy man. 29 years ago this month we had him to stay for a Winchcombe Action for Peace meeting - in the Methodist church, as the Catholic priest said No to it being in St Nicholas'. On our way down the hill into Winchcombe, Gerry realised he'd left his Jerusalem Bible in our spare room - he needed it for his talk. "No problem," I said. "We have to pay a courtesy visit to the Catholic priest, and we can ask to borrow one from him." But, "The Jerusalem Bible!" exclaimed Canon Morrissey. "I don't have that."

Arriving at the door of the Methodist church, we were greeted warmly by the Minister. I told him about Gerry's Jerusalem Bible oversight. "Just a moment," he said, "I'll get Fr. Hughes my copy."

The Royal Court's new play about the climate crisis, 2071 has just begun a short run (till 15th). It "is better than good: it is necessary", concludes Michael Billington in his 5-star review. The same might be said of Gerry Hughes' God of Surprises.

Malleable

Sculptor Anne Boning is a new name to us: we met her this morning up at Farmcote, where she is exhibiting (alongside Sarah Loveday and Diana Green) as part of the Winchcombe Festival. Caroline bought one of her extremely tactile stone pieces.

I write this having just returned from seeing King Lear. Perhaps three major Shakespeare plays within the space of six days is one too many: anyway, this evening felt like a long one. As Michael Billington wrote in his review, "There are times when I feel that Lear is a play that has to be endured as much as enjoyed." No question, Simon Russell Beale invests the name part with all his very considerable skill, but his performance seemed from first to last relentless. "A very foolish, fond old man"? In this modern dress production's quest for character, the poetry seemed somehow to have gone missing.

Winchcombe

This week's trio of Wednesday walkers set off from the foot of Corndean Lane and walked up to Charlton Abbots. Its tranquil church (St Martin's) is rather hemmed in on the West side by conifers: the Baileys seem to have dotted them everywhere around their 4,000-acre estate. We skirted Sudeley Castle on the way out of Winchcombe, and returned past The Wadfield and its Roman Villa, along what was once the path of the Cotswold Way (now diverted). Six beautiful miles.

Silage

I had a lesson about silage during today's Wednesday walk. Starting from the Royal Oak in Gretton, we left the main road by the lane leading up to Abbots Lees. Rain was in the air, but at first we watched it blow down upon Winchcombe from Charlton Abbots and pass us to the East. It was on Langley Hill that we paused to take in the delicious smell, and in doing so met a helpful young farmer, who explained the different ways silage is made: one uses just grass, another adds in immature barley. On his (organic) farm, silage was, he said, fed all the year round to their 150 milking Holsteins .

In the orchard

Relatively new friends asked us to lunch today. It was a party, so it was as well the sun was shining, and we could be outside. They bought a new house in Winchcombe a couple of years ago only, but have already created a great garden in what was once an orchard. The conversation was almost entirely medical - not discussing ailments, but related to the working lives of those present, mostly doctors etc. I asked when we might ever get the national health service we really need - as opposed to the present National Illness Service - but nobody had an answer.

Winchcombe pubs

I used a two-for-one voucher today when visiting The Lion at Winchcombe with one of my two regular lunchmates. I can't recall ever going in there before: like so many, it's now very much a gastropub, and run with much Polish efficiency, it seems. My minute steak and French fries were excellent - all the better because they were free (being the cheaper of the two main courses we ordered). However, you need wine with steak, and the sting in the tail was that there was hardly a bottle under £20.

A while back we were taken to 5 North Street, along the road from The Lion. Much poncier - and still pricier: I prefered the pub. Years ago, the Winchcombe pub to go to was The George: my photograph (taken this afternoon) shows that it still retains a recognisably publike look, even now it's converted into flats.

Compton Abdale

Cousin Trevor is over from Sydney, and has come to stay the weekend, together with his sister, who is from Suffolk: we have never met her before. Today, I drove them round on a scenic tour - past the top of Upper Coberley, through Lower Hilcot, Withington, Compton Abdale, Hazleton, Turkdean and Aylworth. Then lunch at the Black Horse, Naunton, and afterwards on through Kineton to Ford and Toddington, to see the railway (Trevor's work was in that world). Finally, back - via Winchcombe and its Railway Museum (where I had a sleep in the car) - to Cheltenham.

In St Oswald's, Compton Abdale, above the crocodile-mouth water spout, I found this somewhat out of the ordinary altar frontal.

Assistance

It's been there since 1968, but somehow I've never before managed to visit the Winchcombe Railway Museum. You wouldn't think there could be much to it from its entrance amid a terrace of cottages, but in fact it extends as far as the playing fields, and along the backs of three or four neighbouring houses. And every square inch is crammed with railway memorabilia: incredible. My photograph, taken this morning, shows our grandsons considering my request for a third class ticket to Stoke-on-Trent.

This afternoon, I was badgered, as usual, into digging for worms. Laurie (4), spotting a rather weedy specimen, conjectured: "I think he's saying Don't feed me to the chickens, I'm only little."

Seeking to making some practical use of my young assistants, I dug in the potato patch: it's a good crop this year (after all the rain we've had), so there was considerable excitement when the yellow gold was unearthed, particularly larger bits. "Imagine," said William, 6, "that there's a potato so big it could squash all the others, so they wouldn't play with it."

Chipping Campden Music Festival

We missed going to Campden for any music last year. The programme for this year's Festival is full of goodies, but most of them whilst I've been away walking. Last night, however, we went in order to catch a glimpse of Imogen Cooper, accompanying Kate Royal in Mozart's 'Ch'io mi scordi di te...', with the Festival Academy Orchestra under Thomas Hull. This was her third appearance at this year's Festival - she told us she'd enjoyed her stay in the town: it was good to hear she is lined up for next year's Cheltenham Festival, accompanying the Dutch mezzo, Christianne Stotijn. Campden generates an especially friendly atmosphere, and whilst the pews are pretty purgatorial, at least they aren't as claustrophobic as at Tetbury. Not bad woodwind playing from the Festival Orchestra either! But afterwards, not a chance of buying much-needed fish and chips, whether in Campden or Broadway! We found some chips eventually in Winchcombe - but they might have been bits of old shoe leather.

The Cotswold Triangle

Meeting certain very old friends at Easter and Christmas almost forms part of our religious ritual. Yesterday's visit to Winchcombe fulfilled that obligation: we reminisced about a particular three-day family cycle ride - to Evenlode (Day 1), on to Fairford, and back home up the Coln valley. Looking at the photographs afterwards - one appears above - I see it was precisely 20 years ago: Day 3 was election day, and the Cotswolds a sea of daffodils.

Ray Finch RIP

This Christmas, for the first time in very many years, there had been no card bearing Ray's graceful handwriting; and now I hear of his "peaceful" death, on Wednesday.

More than 30 years ago, he was awarded the MBE: nobody could have worn his honour more modestly. He was an inspiration to generations of potters, as well as being one of the easiest people to love and respect. We first met in 1974, when I went to live within Winchcombe Catholic parish, of which Ray and his wife Muriel were quiet stalwarts. Muriel involved me in the formation of the town's overseas development project, a charity we called Save a starving village trust - an informal "twinning" of Winchcombe with Kanjianal in Bangladesh. The bowl Ray gave us for our wedding present remains one of our most treasured possessions - now alas, a little chipped. What a privilege it was to have known Winchcombe's most distinguished craftsman - indeed resident!

I took this photograph on 18th March 1993, the day Jodami won the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Adrian Cave RIP

We met the Caves at Stansted Airport, all four off on a blind date for a weekend in France. Happy times in the Autumn sunshine at Chavenat!

Small wonder that in the decade that ensued, we became friends. But none of the following memories quite catch Adrian's calm knowledgeability or that conspiratorial twinkle of mischievousness:

* Adrian gobsmacked by the monolithic church at Aubeterre

* Adrian downing beer in the Spring sunshine outside the Green Dragon

* Adrian mounting the steps of St Peter's, Winchcombe in his black top hat

* Adrian fresh from the London train on his fold-up bicycle

* Adrian guiding the nuns of Stanbrook onto unaccustomed green paths in his beloved Yorkshire

* Adrian calling upon a lifetime's architectural experience in the transformation of a garden shed: Peter Pan and his Wendy house.

"Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."

"Winchcombe welcomes walkers"

This afternoon I travelled back on the bus from Winchcombe with Georgi, a tour guide from Sofia. He had spent the day exploring Sudeley Castle - "But that's not a proper castle!" we all exclaimed. He said he was off to Warwick next: "Now you're talking!"

I had been walking the dusty field footpaths around Alderton with a group from St Nicholas' Parish in Winchcombe: it included the parish priest, who sported a cap with the above WWW slogan emblazed on it. You needed a hat for today's sunshine.

Returning home, I did a double take when I heard that Cook and Strauss were at the crease, both on 0. Can it have been raining most of the day, a mere 40 miles North in Birmingham? No, we'd bowled them all out cheaply again, it transpired. Michael Vaughan was purring, having had that Shane Warne and (Winchcombe's) Liz Hurley in the box - osculating what's more. ("Too much information," tutted Aggers, who, 20 years on from letting slip the words "leg over", knows about these things.)

Ah, the really important things of life...

Wormington - Sapperton gas pipeline

My first photograph of this scene near Farmcote was taken on a Winter walk from Stow to Winchcombe a couple of years ago. Today I went in the other direction from Winchcombe, but only so far as Guiting Power.

In the meantime, the massive operation to lay 28 miles of controversial gas pipeline through the middle of Gloucestershire has been undertaken. Despite National Grid's claim that the pipe, laid between Wormington near Broadway, and Sapperton near Cirencester, was essential to cope with growing demand, countryside groups were apprehensive about long-term damage to a sensitive landscape.

An extensive hub for the works - as big as a hamlet - was created more or less overnight just off the A40, not far from the Andoversford traffic lights. Driving past today, however, I saw no sign of it: without close observation, it would be hard to know it had ever been there. And the same goes for the pipeline near Farmcote, apart from a smart new wooden fence.

A rather cosy club

On Saturday, driving through Winchcombe at teatime, we saw guests streaming out of St Peter's after a wedding (not this one), all the men wearing dinner jackets and the women slinky evening dresses. Yesterday, I went to a party given by friends whose daughter's wedding (again, not the one in this picture) had also taken place the day before: a mother of another bride-to-be was bemoaning how the village churches around her home only seated "about 60 at a squash", and were therefore far too small for the wedding they had in mind. Two others I spoke to at this same party were discussing the probability that their parish church would be declared redundant: "there were only three of us at Morning Service today."

Clearly, there is still a strong wish amongst many for a church wedding, albeit attenders dress for them with the subsequent dancing in mind. Yet there is insufficient commitment to keep the parish church going week in, week out.

The Jesuit theologian Fr. Gerald O'Collins, giving the Tablet lecture earlier this month, set out seven dreams for the future of the church. One dream is of a church reaching out to others - to those who have lost touch with the church, as well as to other Christians and to members of other faiths. "At times they feel that they have intruded on a rather cosy club, made up of the regular parishioners."

And another of Fr. O'Collins' dreams is prompted by the human race seeming bent on destroying the earth and itself. "The cry of the poor earth must be heeded." He dreams of a church serving those in distress - linking the altar and the soup kitchen. "Young people... sense the difference between what we say and what we do. They respond when there is no gap between our words in church and our actions in the world."

The Gloucestershire Way - another bite

What a beautiful Indian Summer day it was today! Caroline and I caught buses to Winchcombe, and walked the dozen or so miles from there to Tewkesbury. It's the last leg of the Gloucestershire Way, but we have still to go back and do the first three.

Surprisingly, for quite a modern long distance path, it's not well signposted. So, for instance, we got lost for a while on top of Langley Hill above Winchcombe - and this wasn't the only stretch that needs attention.

Although we were never far from a main road, we passed through some spectacular countryside. After looking back from our first climb over a view that took in both Cleeve Common and Meon Hill, the Malverns and Bredon then became the focus. My photograph shows Tewkesbury Abbey with the Malverns behind, taken on Crane Hill above Oxenton.

(I've mentioned previously my other bits of Gloucestershire Way walking - home to Coberley in January; Coberley to Notgrove; Notgrove to Stow, and Stow to Winchcombe.)

Eight plus one deer

Nearly an ideal day today for a long walk! Not too hot, pretty dry underfoot, and nobody about on the Gloucestershire Way between Stow and Winchcombe. But hardly a moment of sunshine, alas.

This stretch of the Way passes through some of the most remote parts of the Cotswolds. In the long stretch between Condicote and Ford you hardly see one house. And so, of course, the deer have nothing to fear. I particularly liked the albino one on the right of this group. (I am informed it may be a fallow deer amongst roe!)

Winchcombe

Agnes had friends to lunch, to celebrate her birthday, so Caroline and I went to Winchcombe. For the past couple of years, The White Hart there has been specialising in wine and sausages. We tried it (and liked it) during the great flooding last year: all the restaurants in Cheltenham were closed, so we drove over the hill to Winchcombe, stupidly thinking they would have water, when of course they are in the same (Severn) catchment as we are. However, they had enterprisingly tapped some friends in the Thames catchment a mile or two away, trucking the water back to the pub. They therefore stayed open. Not that there was much business: everyone must have thought they would be closed.

It was a different story yesterday lunchtime: things were buzzing, the recession notwithstanding. It is good to see so much local food available. The wines are excellent too: I can recommend the Mad Fish Pinot Noir. But it's interesting how we have all come to love eating food that's grown locally, but to go with it we reach out for wine from the Antipodes.