Belle Vue

Bath signage is worth a study: walking back from tea at Sally Lunn's, we saw one on a house near to our hotel last evening - an elegant "Spencers Belle Vue" above the door, and that turns out to be the name of the road too: we look down on it from our third floor bay window.

I thought the steep climb would be a slog after our long day out, but there's so much to observe, and we even went further and revisited our favourite place of all here: in contrast to Royal Crescent below (and the still more ornate Circus), Lansdown Crescent's facade is plain, its only concession to frivolity being the ironwork - assuming you don't count the sheep that safely graze below. Not that you would normally call sheep frivolous, but here they seem it, miles from any proper farmland.

Blossom dearies

We were invited for Sunday lunch by old friends who live on the Cotswold edge. Walking it off afterwards, I remarked on how indented the escarpment is; and how lyrical sheep look in a Springtime orchard!

Lea-ving

As last Saturday, we spent most of today down near Malmesbury, helping Edmund pack up his cottage at Lea. The removal van comes tomorrow morning. Unlike last week, it eventually turned out to be a bright day. After three fine days, it suddenly seems to be Spring and things are needing doing.

En route, we parked at Stockwell, to give Floss a walk. Just before getting back into the car, I had my first glimpse of the sun as a crisp golden disc in the cloud - as one usually sees a full moon on a clear night.

Crippets

Having become bogged down as I walked through Lott Meadow, I was happy to stay on the tarmac up as far as The Crippets on Wednesday: normally, I would pass through the Burley Fields deer park, but that could have been a quagmire. As it was, I saw that the deer park had been extended to the opposite side of the lane from these soggy sheep. (In one of the paddocks further down was a Jacob's, not polycerate but unicerate - a ewe-nicorn?)

My destination on this sunny morning was the Star Bistro, opened fairly recently at Ullenwood. It serves a very good lunch!