#12: B&W Images: Painswick - Shortwood Spur

The Well House at Cliff

Ivy on Beech

The Cromwell Stone

#12: Painswick - Shortwood Spur

Almost Halfway There

Cut Off

Haresfield Beacon Topograph

Started at Shortwood Spur close to Haresfield Beacon and walked back to Painswick. A particularly good way to do this stretch as it gave me the oppoprtunity to lunch at Olivas again in Painswick - highly recommended. Along the way is a fascinating memorial known as the Cromwell Stone which commemorates the raising of the seige in Gloucester on 5th September 1643 by the troops of Charles I during the English Civil War. A little further on is the 1870 well house at Cliff, but sadly the well winch is no longer operable. Not too far from Painswick is the marker for Bath 55 miles, Chipping Campden 47 miles - so from my starting point this morning at Shorthill Spur I must be only a few yards from half way.

Today I enjoyed my first handfuls of blackberries of the year. Not too many ripe yet but the next few weeks looks promising.

#11: B&W Images: Cooper's Hill - Painswick

Painswick - Table Tombs

Painswick - Yew Path

[Yes - I removed a couple of TV aerials]

Painswick - Hairy Yew Pair

#10: B&W Images: The Air Balloon Pub - Cooper's Hill

The Way - Through Witcombe Wood

#9: B&W Images: Leckhampton Hill - The Air Balloon Pub

The Way - Through Barrow Piece Plantation

#11: Cooper's Hill - Painswick

The Bonaventure

Painswick Yews

The view from Painswick Beacon iron age hill fort - into which several holes of Painswick Golf Course are incorporated! - is breathtaking. Some of the panoramas so far along the Cotswold Way are very wide but this is a full 360° and well worth anyone's effort to walk there, as long as you can dodge the golf balls.

I spent a little time at both the start and end of the walk looking at Cooper's Hill; from both the bottom and from the top. And it's steep - it's very steep. No one sane would contemplate running down whilst chasing a rolling cheese! So just where do they find the large numbers of people every year who willingly hurl themselves down this preciptious slope in the interests of being first to the bottom so they get the cheese. I love cheese - but I know my limits. The annual filming of the event is perhaps the magnet which attacts the maddest. The filming could almost be for an episode of "I'm an idiot - stretcher me out of here".

Painswick is a beautiful village - aren't they all - but the churchyard with dozens of clippped yews has to be it's most notable attraction. But they're a real challenge to photograph well. There's a colour one above but I took several in b&w from which hopefully one or two will prove to be worth publishing. Inside the church there's a beautiful old model of one of Francis Drake's early vessels - the Bonaventure.

#10: The Air Ballon Pub - Cooper's Hill

Woodland Path

Hartstongue Ferns

A frustrating walk today. Started out in soft sun whilst I walked the 3 miles through Witcombe Woods from Cooper's Hill (site of the annnual lunacy of 'cheese rolling'). Emerging from the woods after having taken just one b&w shot but having earmarked a few more for the return journey I was reminded of my disappointment at the far point of my last walk. There is what is best described as an amphitheatre between Crickley Hill fort and the promontary known as The Peak - approaching 3 miles apart. The performance in the amphitheatre is the constant, unvarying heavy traffic on Birdlip Hill as it strains and grinds its way up about 250m and whose noise seems to be focused up to the top rim where the Cotswold Way meanders through yet more beautiful Cotswold countryside. Being a purist I had to complete the additional 2-mile round trip to the Air Balloon pub where I left off last week rather than just avoid it. Hopefully there are no more such intrusions along the way. Local roads and traffic are ok but this was too much.

I started the day with high expectations that the weather would be fine - so when the steady rain began just after the halfway point my spirits dropped. The rain was more than I was happy to cope with for the images I'd earmarked for the return - so I was scuppered. Two lessons learned today - although it's not as if I hadn't thought I'd learnt them before.

1. Don't defer taking a picture - do it there and then.
2. Don't trust the weather forecast.

But the walk itself was as always a pleasure, even in the rain - except for the traffic interlude.