Of Mud and Merriment...

A few weekends ago, a few of us headed north for the goodly land of the Cotswolds.  We rented a cottage in a small town

 called Blockley about 4 miles from Moreton-in-Marsh, which has the train station and the nearest bus stop.  When we got there on Friday morningish we strapped our luggage to our backs and found a footpath that took us underhill and overhill to our homely house.  We passed through fields and ran into several flocks of sheep (I put my bags down in the first one and ran around with them...it was glorious.), a large tree which we sat under and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (the only form of peanut butter I can handle), and a really old stone wall with moss growin out of its innards.  The first time we did the trail, it took us about 3 hours if you include our lunch stop and all the stops we made to take pictures every 23 seconds.  When we arrived at the cottage, Gloria, the house-keeper, met us with a smile and talked to us for about 20 straight minutes about every topic she could think of.  It was a lovely introduction to an even lovelier place.   The rest of

 the day was spent walking about the town, playing on a playground, and scrounging materials for omelets that eventide.  We all gathered around the fireplace that night and thought... 'ah! what a pleasant weekend this will be...'  Little did we know the excitement in store for us.

"So what's the plan for the day?" asked Katyo after we went through half a box of Choco Puffs and a few oranges (which Katie G. pointed out would be a horribly awkward thing to eat on a first date).

"Well, we walk to Stow-on-the-Wold and rent the bicycles, bike down to Borton-on-the-Water and be back by night.  We'll try and see if we can keep them overnight and return them Sunday evening."

So that was the plan.  But after telephoning the bicycle people, and other bicycle people, and people who used to be bicycle people, we ended up figuring out that the nearest bicycles were actually at Bouron on the Water and not Stow.  "No worries, though, it should only take 2 or 3 hours to walk there, and we're here to see the countryside anyways."  This was mistake number one.  Had we walked the whole way, it would have taken some 5 or 6 hours to get there by foot and the bicycle place would have long been shut-down.

Upon realizing this, we took a bus to Bourton after an already late start and meandered through the beautiful village until about 4 of the clock.

"do you have any maps of good bike-trails in the area?" we asked the kind man behind the counter.

"you're coming from Blockley, right?"  "yeah"  "well, you'll probably only have time to get back home before it gets dark."

We should have realized this would mean trouble.  And of course we didn't.

The problem was that the roads were more uphill than downhill, and we stopped every time I came within half a mile of a sheep.  Needless to say, it was dark before we were even half-way back.  A quarter of the way back, even.  But we had a brilliant idea - lock up the bikes in Stow and take a bus to them in the morning and continue our journey from there!

Brilliant, except for one thing.  we forgot that the busses don't run on Sundays.  

So the next morning, as we sipped tea next to the fireplace and had a lovely bible study together, we thought once more that this would be a calm, relaxing day.  And then we found out about the busses.  Soooo, we did the only thing we could and walked to Stow.  a mere 8 mile stretch, and overestimating our human abilities we thought we could make it in 2.5 hours.  try 4.  and halfway through hour 2, Katie G. asked me if I remembered to bring the key to the bicycle lock.

"uhhhhhh....mmm. that's not good."  "you're kidding right?"  "uh....  no."

"well, maybe we can pick the lock." - another error in human reasoning.

We got to our bikes with 5 minutes to spare and quickly realized that the lock was going nowhere, which meant the bikes were going nowhere.  So we called a taxi (poor man, he must have thought we were loons).  "hey!  we need a ride from Stow to Blockley."  "Ok, I can do that."  "and then back to Stow." silence. "think of it like a there-and-back-again type journey."  "alright." "oh, and then we need to go back to Blockley."  there was no way we were walking all the way back in the dark.  (oh, I forgot to mention, that's what we did the night before, and it was quite the adventure, what with Katyo getting her shoe eaten by a mudpuddle and the rest of us getting covered with dirt and grass).

In the end, it was the story of the season, and we all laughed and smiled and shook our heads in disbelief.

A wonderful weekend it was - even if nothing went the way it was supposed to.