East Surrey Walkers
Cotswold Holiday 14-18 October 2019
Rain, rain, rain – hardly the best start to a walking holiday! And the rain was forecast to continue for all 3 days of our stay in the Cotswolds. Undaunted, 40 East Surrey Walkers arrived at Harrington House in Bourton on the Water on Monday 14th October to a warm welcome and a scrumptious cream tea.
Our first evening meal was delicious, and we all ate far too much … but still managed to enjoy a riotous game of indoor skittles, which was won by Barbara Bulman.
After a tasty breakfast on Tuesday morning, we all stashed our goodie bags full of our sandwiches and a selection of the amazing HF snacks on offer to see us through the day, and we then set off on our respective long/short walks, walking through the pretty Upper and Lower Slaughter villages – the longer walkers extending their walk to take in the village of Naunton. This was our first introduction to the picturesque countryside of the Cotswolds.
The evening brought another delicious supper followed by a quiz which was hosted by Jim Burbidge. Some obscure questions caused many a furrowed brow but it was great fun and finally won, by 1 point only, by the Big Test Iscicles!
The short walkers started their Wednesday walk in Quenington and made their way through parkland, woods and water meadows to the beautiful village of Bibury, taking in the iconic Arlington Row. The longer walkers set off from Windicombe, ascending to Cleeve Hill with fine views over Cheltenham.
Yet another enjoyable supper with lots of wine and noisy convetsation was followed by a rampageous evening of Barn Dancing, led by Tony Pearson.
On Thursday, we had another 2 wonderful walks through the glorious Cotswold countryside. The short walkers set off from Chipping Campden – regarded as one of the finest towns in the Cotswolds – and walked 6.5 miles to Dovers Hill, the site of the original Olympic Games in 1612, and through farmland and woods via the Dingle and back to the town. The longer walk was 12.3 miles from the beautiful village of Stanton, up hills and down dales, visiting the charming villages of Snowshill and Buckland.
In the evening, the HF staff did us proud for our final meal – a sumptious 5-course meal – which was followed by the very first ESW’s Got Talent. So, who knew there was so much talent within our group!? Speak to me nicely, and I’ll show you the videos!! It was amazing fun and will certainly be repeated! Well done, Helen and Amanda for organising it.
All good things have to come to an end, and this is the time to give thanks to everyone who made it such a wonderful holiday – to the HF staff who looked after us so well; to Adam for plotting the routes; to the leaders who guided us along the routes, to the organisers of our evening entertainments; and a BIG thank you to Helen for planning, organising and co-ordinating our holiday. Oh, and just one more thank you …. to those in charge of the weather – remember the forecast for 3 days of rain? It turned out that Fortuna (the Roman goddess of fortune and good luck) took pity on us and we had dry, crisp days with a fair amount of sunshine – PERFECT!
Pamela Cunniffe Publicity Officer