We just got back from a three-day weekend in the Cotswolds, and it was so beautiful and wonderful. The most amazing part is that I DROVE THE WHOLE TIME. I had worked very hard to get my license, you may remember, and this is my first time hiring a car. Getting out of London was scary as shit. The roads in the Cotswolds are so windy and narrow, usually the size of one car. BUT WE MADE IT!! And I even completed a 6 mini-roundabout roundabout (right on the first, straight on the second, and right on the third to get out. Essentially it was a right hand turn on a three way intersection - I didn't cry!). And it started with some rental car bad luck, as I somehow accidentally reserved a manual car. While I do know how to drive a manual, I have never done it with the stick on the other side AND my license is only for an automatic. I had the NICEST dudes ever at the Enterprise in St John's Wood, and they somehow found another (small...five people...and luggage...oy) automatic for me for a small fee. I told them they could have charged me an extra £200 - my air bnb was already paid for, and we were totally screwed if we didn't have a car. I was SO SO grateful they found a car and figured it out for me. (You may recall that in Lisbon last year I rented the car for the wrong month. I need someone to review my rental car bookings).
Matt flew in on an overnight flight on Friday morning, arriving home around 9:30. I had gotten home with the car around 9. We packed up and drove out, finally leaving after a quick stop for some weekend carbs (challah, bagels, pita and sandwiches) at Roni's, around 11. Googlemaps took me through London a bit before we left, and that was tricky, but we made it out, through Oxford and arrived at a beautiful hike with gorgeous views. We finished just as the sun was setting and drove through dusk to our air bnb. We had looked at one that was on a farm and one that we understood was in a village. We chose the one on the farm, but when we went to book, it was taken, so we grabbed the village one. When we got there, we realized there were about five houses in the village, and the backyard was essentially a farm. It was a GORGEOUS setting, a truly Cotswoldian (I made that up) house and decorated in such a fun way. We got settled, and went across the street for our dinner reservation at the Halfway pub at 6pm. It was a spectacular dinner, though Sam only ate toast and fries. The rest of us enjoyed!
Saturday morning we got moving and went to Broadway. We found all-day parking on the edge of town and did a GORGEOUS hike. With the extra walking to the parking, it was about 8 miles, and it started with a huge, steep uphill. Sam decided they were not coming at some point, and walked way back down (what a waste!), and the rest of us didn't know what to do (13 year olds are so fun sometimes). But they changed their mind, plugged in my air pods and got grooving for the rest of the hike. It was up up up, ultimately to the Broadway Tower. Then it was down through pastures, alongside sheep, horses, past a gorgeous old church, back up and down and all around, through a couple of small villages, and back to Broadway. I did slip TWICE in the mud (no one else did, and of course the first time I fell was when I was asking Koby to stop running, because I didn't want to deal with his muddy laundry!). We super enjoyed, and finally sat down for lunch around 2:30pm. Lunch was wonderful - it's so fun that Elie is trying and enjoying more complex foods - our kids suck at eating. He had a goat cheese, roasted pepper and rocket sandwich and greek salad. Sam had a pizza, Matt and I split two great sandwiches and Koby had a burger. We drove through two other super cute towns - Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water, grabbed some milk and headed back to our house. We had dinner at a pub five minutes drive from our house. I didn't love driving in the dark, though I did love that it was five minutes. There were a few huge parties there, and it was so so loud, and after a long day, we were all a bit over stimulated. Elie and I waited outside. Sam found the pub dog to pet and Koby was busy on the Worldle with Matt's phone. While everyone had said, "I am not eating," we finished everything in the end, and the loud party moved further back in the pub, which helped with the yelling in our ears.
We had loved Bourton-on-the-Water so much that we found a hike that went near and through there for Sunday. We packed up and somehow got everything into our tiny car, and drove to Bourton-on-the-Water. We found some all-day parking at the Farmer's Market (literally IN the car park that the market was in...) and we were off on another amazing hike. This one was my favorite. It took us through the town in all sorts of beautiful ways and then into a big field. We ran into a man walking a border collie, and he suggested we follow him for a detour to go on an old train track above the river and then see an old mill. He was lovely, and he didn't kill us, so we were happy. The trail was cool, and we could see a huge Victoria-built tunnel made for the river below. We wove through some village roads, past the mill, through farms, with sheep grazing, up and down, and through the most beautiful villages, along rivers and to another mill. It was such a diverse path, and just truly gorgeous. We got lunch and hot chocolate at a cafe in town, walked around a bit and headed back to London.
All in all, it was a BEAUTIFUL and super fun trip. The kids were troopers in the back of a little car (after being used to a minivan!) and hiking a total of 26 miles over the weekend. We would go back to the airbnb in a second, and we are looking for weekends to make it happen. The area is truly so so so beautiful - the architecture of nearly every building is so unique, British and gorgeous.
In other news, since my last post, the kids all went back to school, and I started working a bit. I went back to an organization I worked for for seven years, until end of 2020 when I nearly lost my mind with kids learning at home, all on different schedules, ages 5-10, and trying to work at the dining table, because I no longer had an office at home. I also am working on another online course for Harvard office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning. AND this event that I'm organizing logistics for at the school is soon - 1,600 people at the Global Festival - so I've been way busier. And I have been trying to not play tennis or pickleball, doing lots of strengthening exercises and seeing an Osteo for needles and other treatments to try to get my tennis elbow to heal. It's definitely better.
We had good friends, Pam and Marc from Singapore (now New York) over for Shabbat dinner. Matt went on a ski weekend in Switzerland with colleagues (he loved it!). Sam's play rehearsals have picked up (show is March 8th). We had friends over. Matt went to Senegal, Ivory Coast and Nigeria and all else is routine!
Lots of guns
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