Happy New Year

May there be good books, good wine, and angels dining at the Ritz.

The Feast of Stephen

Nadolig Llawen

Monarch's Way

While I was walking round Rodmarton village on my last morning there, I noticed a public footpath sign saying Monarch's Way, with one side pointing out across the fields and the other into the village.
So I looked it up, and Monarch's Way turns out to be quite an interesting long distance footpath.
The footpath is 625 miles long, and follows the approximate route (on public rights of way) that Prince Charles took during his escape after the Battle of Worcester in the English Civil War. Eventually, he was taken to the Continent aboard a ship called the Surprise, and that ship is featured on the way markers.
Rodmarton lies on the segment of the path that runs between Cirencester and Tetbury. The prince eventually reached Shoreham, on the South coast, where the ship was waiting for him. The journey had taken him six weeks.
Some of the path runs along disused railways and along canals, neither of which existed in 1651, and is split into three parts with three guide books for the convenience of the modern walker, who is not being pursued by Roundheads.
Occasionally I hear of re-enactors doing long distance walks in full kit - the Ermine Street Guard along Hadrian's Wall, for instance, and way back in the late 1970s/early 1980s (shortly before I was a member, anyway) Sir Gilbert de Hoghton's Companie of Foote did a sponsored walk somewhere around Preston, for which they got a commendation at a short ceremony at the Oak Apple Day battle in 1980 or 81. It was the first (and only) Sealed Knot battle I was involved in (as pike person). I don't remember where it was held, but I do remember being part of the group who took the flag onto the battle field, and shouting "The King and the Cause" when the group got their award.
I wonder if any Sealed Knot members have walked the Monarch's Way.

Travelling by Train in a time of Floods

My journey home was smooth and easy. I got a lift down to Bristol with my friend, and arrived at Temple Meads station in plenty of time to have a cup of coffee at Bonaparte's Bar, which was even on the right platform for my train. Then it was an easy change at Newport and up to Hereford, just in nice time for the bus home.

The journey out was not quite so easy. It started with the train from Hereford to Newport being 6 minutes late. This was just enough for me to miss my connection. However, the lovely man at the Help Desk gave me a new route which would get me into Stroud only ten minutes after I had originally planned!
So I got on the train to Bristol Parkway and Swindon. After a little while on the train, there was an announcement to say there was flooding between Bristol Parkway and Swindon, so the train would be taking an alternative route which would add an extra 25 minutes to the journey.
The views of Bath were very nice.
Swindon at least has a lot of space undercover. I bought a magazine at the WH Smiths there, and asked them what their charity box was. The chap behind the counter was pleased to explain the WH Smiths Trust to me, which seems to exist to help staff to fund raise for good causes.
The train to Stroud arrived, and I noticed that I would be approaching the station from the opposite direction from my original route.
By the time I got into the station, I was about an hour late, and worrying that my friend would not still be there to pick me up. She was there, but she had also texted my Young Man to ask for my mobile number.
I don't have a mobile.
So then he was worried as well that I had disappeared somewhere between Hereford and Stroud!
Fortunately he didn't have to stay worried for too long.
Next time I'm booking the ticket to Kemble - I can walk to my friend's house from there!

The Malthouse Collective

On the Sunday we headed for the outskirts of Stroud for a big antique centre (and café) called the Malthouse Collective.
Lunch was the first item on the agenda - we had to move away from the big picture windows to the slightly warmer booths at the back of the room. It really was chilly. The food was a bit slow in coming, but when it did arrive it was delicious - my friends had variations on a fried breakfast and I had the salmon bagel from the lunch menu.
Then we went through to the main body of the shop, which is on two floors, for some gentle retail therapy. My friend who is just moving house now has an open fire to play with, and she found a magnificent copper coal scuttle, with matching little shovel. She also found one of those printers' drawers, to display small items.
I was looking for anything with badgers, and came away with a pretty little pottery dish lid showing a family of badgers playing around the entrance to their sett, and my other friend got a few last minute Christmas presents.
There were crafts for sale, as well as antiques, and even a stall selling vinyl and comics, so a good mix. I have to say I was greatly tempted by the Kenyan spear which had reputedly been used to defend the village's goats from wild animals - but I'd never have been able to get it home on the train!

Music in a Local Pub

After a very pleasant lunch at Highgrove, we had something very different planned for the evening. One of my friend's colleagues plays guitar in a band, and that night just two of them were entertaining at a pub called the Cross Hands on the outskirts of Bristol. It was Johnny on guitar and Steve on vocals, set up at one end of a bar. They were playing punk and ska with a bit of Elvis thrown in.
I wasn't much of a fan of punk in the 70s - as far as I was concerned it was music for people who couldn't sing - so I was surprised to find that I actually knew a lot of the songs they played, such as songs by Madness (Johnny had a fez with 'Madness' written on the front of it, and a tassle that kept dangling in his face). And I was singing along loudly to Tainted Love - it was the favourite song of one of my housemates at college, so I learned all the words by osmosis because they played it all the time.
It was a real ale pub, the sort with pump clips hung up all round the bar, and I was pleased to find Uley Bitter there. It was also a real locals pub - in the afternoon they'd held a colouring in competition for the local kids, with prizes of selection boxes, and there were still a few boxes hanging around. One or two of them even had some chocolate still in them - one of my friends bagged a finger of Fudge, and I got a Wispa bar!
Steve's (adult) step-daughter was there, pretending to play a toy saxophone, and very enthusiastically encouraging people to get up and dance - which we did, though there wasn't a lot of room.
It was a really fun evening, and it was nice to meet Johnny, as we'd heard so much about him from the friend who works with him.

Rodmarton

I've been looking up some details about the village of Rodmarton - and there's lots of interesting stuff. I'll have to make sure my friend invites me to stay again!

Evidence of a Roman settlement has been found, and several major Roman roads pass close by. Cirencester (a Roman town) is only 6 miles away. There's also a nearby long barrow which looks very interesting. It's called Windmill Tump, and seems to be Neolithic, and is part of the Severn-Cotswold group of long barrows.
While the village was historically inhabited by agricultural workers, the present population of 333 people are mainly in managerial or professional jobs, according to Wikipedia. It's part of the Kemble Estate, and Kemble railway station is nearby. There's even a vaguely local link, as Michael Biddulph, who inherited the Estate in 1884, came from Ledbury in Herefordshire.

There are also strong links to the Arts and Crafts Movement in the area. The nearby hamlet of Tarlton was the site of a pottery which did design work for Wedgewood, and the manor house - well, the manor house is a gem, though it's also very hard to photograph from the road, being very long, and well screened by hedges and walled gardens and orchards.
The present building was built between 1909 and 1929, in the Arts and Crafts style, with Arts and Crafts furniture. Everything was done by hand with local materials and local craftsmen. The stone for the building was quarried locally and brought to the site by a private railway line.
The present owners are the fourth generation of the Biddulph family to live there. Michael Biddulph's son Claud (there's a plaque to his memory in St Peter's Church) provided the money, and the house was built by architect Ernest Barnsley, one of the leading lights of the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement, his brother Sidney and his son-in-law. The Biddulphs also wanted to use the house as a place to teach traditional crafts. There are 74 rooms, including one of the last private chapels to be built in England.
Ernest also laid out the 8 acres of gardens, and they are advertising opening times in February to see the snowdrops (I love snowdrops). They also host opera (which I can take or leave) and a rare plant fair.

Idyllic Cotswold Weekend

Every year, two old school friends of mine meet up near Christmas to go for lunch at Highgrove, Prince Charles' house just outside Tetbury. For the past three years, I've been going too, and we always have such wonderful fun.
This year was a bit different, because my friend who lives in the Cotswolds is in the middle of moving house, so we decided to camp out at the new place, in the beautiful village of Rodmarton:

This was the original village school, built in 1828, and it's right next to St Peter's Church (which may well have Saxon origins) and looks out onto the village green.

The lunches at Highgrove raise money for the Prince's Trust, but they also have to work around the Prince's diary. In previous years, they've opened for six weeks, and got a lot of extra stock in the shop for Christmas, but this year they were only able to do it for two weeks, so we were quite lucky to get tickets. The food is excellent - I had beef that melted in the mouth, followed by a gingery sweet pudding.
The shop, too, was just the usual shop for people visiting the gardens, with a few extra Christmas things. I was very pleased to see the Christmas Pudding Wine was there, and also managed to get a few Christmas presents.
We also stop at the Honesty shop attached to the Prince's organic farm - you turn up a side lane next to a giant sculpture of a carrot:

So these are the ladies who were in the same class as me at school.

On the way back to the house, we passed a gypsy caravan parked on the grass verge. The chap was selling Christmas wreaths and mistletoe, and we made a fuss of his dog Duchess. The horse was grazing a little way further along the verge.

I've got some lovely mistletoe hanging up in my window now.

Star Trek related Deaths

It's been a bad week for the Star Trek community.
First Dorothy Fontana died, and she's been quickly followed by Robert Walker Jr., Rene Auberjonois and the husband of Marina Sirtis.

Robert Walker Jr. played Charlie X in one of the first Star Trek episodes. I also remember him in The War Wagon, a Western starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, and he guest starred in several series like Bonanza and The Invaders. He was probably most famous for his role in Easy Rider.

Rene Auberjonois was, of course, Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A brilliant double act with Quark - and impressive as the editor of the 1950s SF magazine in the episode Far Beyond the Stars.
I was surprised to find, when I looked him up, that he was a direct descendant of Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest sister, and Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon's marshals and later King of Naples!
He had a long career in theatre, TV, film, radio and voice work for animated films and series, and video games.

Marina Sirtis, of course, played Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation and she will be appearing in Star Trek: Picard. Her husband was Michael Lamper, an actor and rock guitarist.

Dorothy Fontana has Died

I've just heard that DC Fontana, one of the best writers for Classic Star Trek, and someone who invented almost everything we know about Vulcans, has died. She was 80.
She was the story editor for the original series, after her work on the episodes Charlie X and This Side of Paradise. Other episodes she was responsible for are Tomorrow is Yesterday, Friday's Child, and the wonderful Journey to Babel.
In the third season, as a freelance writer, she wrote The Enterprise Incident, That Which Survives and The Way to Eden (oh, well - the space hippies one was not her finest hour....).
Later she wrote the animated episode Yesteryear, where we finally see Spock's sehlat.
She also worked with Gene Roddenberry on The Questor Tapes and Genesis II (Questor was kind of an early version of Data).
Later she worked on other SF shows, including the original Battlestar Galactica - The Gun on Ice Planet Zero was one of hers, which I remember fondly. It was sort of Guns of Navarone in space. She also worked on Encounter at Farpoint, the pilot episode of Star Trek TNG, and on Babylon 5. She also wrote the Star Trek novel Vulcan's Glory, which I remember snapping up as soon as I saw the author's name.
She attended one of the Star Trek conventions in the 1980s that I went to - I remember being very shy but going up to get her autograph anyway. One of the other guests at that convention was a stuntman friend of Gene Roddenberry's, who had worked on the Errol Flynn film Robin Hood!
She was one of my inspirations when I wanted to become a writer - I've never got any further than self-publishing and blogging, but I know where to look when I want to find out how to write a scene, and how to write three dimensional characters!