Our Mary Poppins day*

*practically perfect in every way

Saturday 19 May – Winchcombe to Broadway/

What makes a perfect day?

Many things probably, too many to fit into one day, but if we had to pick a day on our route so far that encapsulated it, today would be that day.

On paper, it didn’t look a spectacular route, just a 16km walk between two Cotswold villages. But somehow, everything came together.

The distance, for one thing – after a series of very long days, we loved today being one of the shortest so far. It allowed us the luxury of time to take in more of the countryside. We tweaked the route a bit and started off on a different route, the Winchcombe Way, rather than the Cotswold way. For the first hour we were quite close to the Gloucestershire Worcestershire Steam Railway and could hear its regular toots and see occasional puffs of smoke as well as the train itself. The Winchcombe Way went up high enough at times to give us lovely views without scaling the heights that the Cotswold Way did, really the best of both worlds.

The day was yet another beautiful sunny, warm and lovely day. The fields were bursting with flowers, with the mayflower/hawthorn in full glorious flower. Again we struck lucky because it seems to have been a perfect year weather-wise to encourage the largest amount of hawthorn flower seen for many years. The fields that aren’t being grazed or planted are lush and green and liberally sprinkled with buttercups. This being sheep country, there were sheep of every shape and size – white, black, mottled, horned, skinny-legged, short-legged, and even some with mint sauce bottles already attached (only joking!)

We passed through a series of charming villages including Hailes, which boasts a ruined abbey, and a very cheery steward who advised us that taking the lower route was definitely the smart thing to do. He was busy hanging out Union Jacks because today of course was The Big Day. Next followed Wood Stanway and Stanway and then on to Stanton.

In many ways Stanton was the highlight of the walk today, both literally and metaphorically. It’s a gorgeous village, noted in our guidebook as “the quintessential Cotswold village”, and we have to agree; beautiful Cotswold stone houses including a 400-year-old farmhouse. It coincided with lunchtime so we went up a steep drive to the Mount Inn (hint: the name is a giveaway!) with wonderful views out over Stanton and the countryside beyond.  We sat in the sun with our drinks and a scrumptious slice of brownie complete with ice cream – yum! It was very hard to get going again… but we were on a mission. There was a big event we wanted to see.

No, not THE big event – the FA Cup final!

We really liked Broadway; it is very picturesque, not as pretentious as Winchcombe, and with an open and spacious feel – the village’s name comes from the width of the  main street. We made it there with plenty of time to spare before kickoff. In fact our hostess was still enjoying her late lunch in the garden complete with champagne to toast the happy couple (no, not us, the other happy couple!).  Having checked in to Hadley House, our B&B, we sat in the garden, reading today’s paper and revelling in the sun.  Then it was time to watch the game.

At half time we decided it would be ideal to watch the second half in a pub, to really get the full atmosphere. We’d already asked our host about a good pub, and on her advice repaired to the Crown and Trumpet (“it’s where all the locals go”). We scored a great table close to a TV and enjoyed our delicious meals while watching the second half – Stilton ploughman’s for Val, duck and apricot sausages for Peter. We are both paid-up members of the ABMU (Anyone But Man United) Club so were delighted when Chelsea won (sorry if we’ve offended anyone!). To top it off the pub specialised in real ales (Timothy Taylor Landlord bitter, Artists Ale, Black Rat cider), and had a superb atmosphere. We strolled back to our B&B in the evening dusk, as happy and content as we could be.

Distance: 16km