The warmth of a Spanish village

What do people think when I let slip that we have a place in Spain? Sun, sea, villas, sangria and tapas perhaps. However, an overriding feeling that comes to mind when I am in our village (which is nowhere near the sea) is warmth. Not of the climate, which is quite variable and sometimes vicious, no not that: I mean the warmth of the people.

Well, our village of La Fresneda is small so that could account for the residents open friendliness, something you could hardly expect in a city. However, we often overnight in villages on our travels and reactions to the presence of strangers such as ourselves can range between outright suspicion, wariness, ignorance and just the occasional friendliness. In La Fresneda it is the norm to warmly greet a passing stranger. The locals even tolerate the crowds of Spanish visitors that teem out of coaches below, then struggle up the steep hill on their way to the church and tiny ruined castle. Those visitors usually pass our house along the way and some of them pull the cord that rings the bell in the shrine to Santa Agueda just outside our main windows. I have plans for that cord.

Of course, having visited regularly for 25 years and despite my declining ability to speak or understand Spanish and their inclination to converse in their own local language, we do know quite a few people by sight and association. On this trip “the man who looks like his dad” was surprisingly friendly, even inviting me to steal beer from the tap whilst Vincente, the bar owner, was busy in the kitchen. By the way that man’s dad passed away some time ago so we are thinking of renaming him.

Margaret has a much better memory and much greater interest in the reproductive side of the place than me. She can identify adults who were toddlers when we first came and seems to know their lineage. This time our grandson and his very nice girlfriend came to stay and we dined in the wonderful Mataranya Restaurant: wonderful both in its architecture and décor plus its unusual menu which owes a lot to the fruits of local hunting. I had jabali which is wild boar. The original owners and waiters were still there, and we regard them as friends, and they now employ their sons as servers and probably future inheritors. Many years ago during the village fiesta, one of those sons was the guilty party in inducing our then fourteen-year-old grandson to imbibe some “special water” thus sending him home to us quite drunk.

On this trip we visited many French and Spanish villages on our way to and from our own, but none so warm and welcoming as ours. That aside the main memory of the two thousand plus mile trip was the colours.

October is a great month for autumnal forest glory, and we observed the most outstanding greens, browns, yellows, orange and reds was as we crossed the Pyrenees on our return journey. Stunning, though the photos barely portray what we saw.

“Pubs aren’t only about food, you know.”

 

Did you know that? It is a quote from a visitor’s review of a ‘pub’ that’s not that far from my Cotswold home, though not too near, thank the stars. I am hardly likely to go to a pub started by a rather mouthy media personality who was sacked by the BBC for thumping the producer of Top Gear. However, dogs are welcomed there, I gather. The following picture of a pub sign is not from that pub, but I like it and the Two Fat Blokes kindly gave me their permission to use it here. You can find more of their excellent signs at https://twofb.com/.

Now, I really thought I knew what a pub was, after all I have spent a significant proportion of my adult and teenage life in them. Why, I even came quite close to running one once, and both my wife, Margaret, and I have served behind bars. Ha!

But perhaps I’ve got pubs all wrong, so I looked up the definition in that source of all knowledge: Wikipedia. And this is it:

A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises.

Hmm, so perhaps the reviewer is correct and pubs are not all about food. Following that the Wikipedia article quotes from CAMRA, an arcane organisation that started in the 1970’s and which should know a little about the pubs of today. It states that a pub has four characteristics:

• ·        is open to the public without membership or residency
• ·        serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
• ·        has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
• ·        allows drinks to be bought at a bar (i.e., not only table service)

I would add this to that last point …and perhaps consumed there whilst chatting to the bar staff, other customers, and anyone else willing to indulge in alcohol-infused conversation.

Often when I am in non alcohol-infused company the conversation turns to pubs and I listen to these interchanges very carefully. The basic format is something along these lines:

“Have you been to the Loyal Oak at Aylesbury?”

“No, what’s it like. Is the food any good?”

“Its really nice, the chairs are comfortable and the service is good.”

“And the food?”

“Excellent, they have a famous chef there now, you know that chap who comes on the telly talking about grilling acorns.”

Then someone (me) intrudes on the conversation by asking:

“What about the beer? Do they have handpumps? Did they have a guest ale or are they tied to a brewery? Are dogs allowed?”

They both look at me shocked and, after a puzzled silence, the person who had been to the Loyal Oak in Aylesbury replies:

“Well, I don’t really know. We don’t drink much – driving you know. Just a glass of red or white with the meal perhaps. Oh, and we don’t have a dog.”

It is odd to recall that most pubs did not serve food in the past - bag of crisps or a pork pie if you were lucky. Eating out for most people was a rarity and took place in a restaurant or a hotel or a café often for birthdays or a wedding anniversary.

When we first moved to the Cotswolds (actually back to the Cotswolds for Margaret) the nearest pub was the Cold Aston Plough, and my wife informed me that in the 1960s this was the first pub in the area to serve food: that much remembered delicacy called chicken in the basket. By the 1990s, when I briefly became a local there, it was very much a food destination until we drinkers arrived later in the evening. The then landlord told me that it was a soulless place before the drinkers arrived, no sound to speak of except the clinking of cutlery and muffled conversations.

So what did that man who wrote in his review, “Pubs are not all about food, you know,” refer to? No, it wasn’t beer or alcohol or dogs. Pubs, he claimed, are “about how they make you feel”.

Now, I thought that this was what the alcohol was for! It makes you feel good, gets you talking rubbish to other drinkers and lets you go home happy. However, I must now concentrate more on my feelings, or get a dog.

Cotswold Way: The end at last

 I’ve done it! I had hoped to complete the 100 plus mile trek in two sessions, but on the second leg I was rained off at Cheltenham and when I resumed the walk I only managed to reach Winchcombe from where I had to return home by taxi after the disastrous ejection of my tent and belongings from a farmer’s field.

On this, hopefully, the last leg, I left Stow on the nine o’clock bus to Cheltenham with my trusty golf cart (GT) and changed there for Wincombe bus, which was packed full of people heading for the Way. Not really, they were mostly travelling to the town to visit its major attraction: Sudeley Castle.

My Way was the next turning after the Gloucestershire Way where my tent had been forcibly ejected on the last visit and this and it had an interesting name, Puck Pit Lane. After a while the lane became a  trail across a field and it was soon after that I lost my Way.  Puck it, I said to myself, but fortunately I spotted some walkers who were following the Way going south and took my lead from them. It rose steeply. At one point I was almost flat on the ground gripping tree roots to heave up the GT behind me.

Gaining height was rewarding though, the view expanded enormously as I headed north towards Stanway. The Way then dipped deeply down into a steep valley which embraces that tiny village and its eponymous  House. By the way, Winchcombe to Stanway by road is a mere 2.5 miles, by the Cotswold Way it is more than six and at times offers very strenuous hiking.

Next came the village of Stanton which is so lovely for a moment I imagined that I would like to live there. I was soon dissuaded by an elderly local decorator who informed me proudly that the house he was working on was worth £2.1m, and his next job was a place that was for sale at £2.1 m! According to him, all of those characterful Cotswold stone villas that I passed  were worth £2.1m.

Walking became more demanding as I headed towards Broadway and the GT developed a mind of its own, occasional slipping out of its essential quick release linkage then lying stationary on the ground. I think it  was along that I met yet more Americans walking the Way. This couple were about my age or a bit younger, she had been a librarian and he a lawyer  (semi-retired). We had a good old chat about books and writing and of course Trump. The lawyer had not voted for him but had some sympathy for those who did.

I had good reason to avoid Broadway, the quintessential rich persons’ Cotswold village, but I could not. Fortunately, I came across the perfect wild camping spot less than a mile outside the village, fairly quiet, private, and no bother to anyone. Took the usual hour or so to set up camp, have a quick shave and shower (joke!) then walked through a friendly sheep field, past the church and straight into a pub, the Crown and Trumpet. Three handpumps, friendly landlord and discount for CAMRA members (but even then, an expensive pint). Took my perfect pint of Shagweaver outside and made some notes of the day. I then went back in to order some food.

“Kitchen closed at 7.30pm,” said the landlord proudly. “You might get something at the Swan around the corner if you’re quick.”

“OK, I‘ll probably call in for another pint on the way back.”

“Not likely,” he replied proudly, “we close at 9.30pm”. What!!!

The Swan was a swish hotel on the main drag. I wanted something cheap and basic but they did not cater for the likes of me. Well, beggars can’t be choosers so I ate their sophisticated and expensive meal swilled down with a costly pint.

Afterwards I walked along the main street passing priceless art shops, sophisticated book shops and such. I despaired at the lack of cheap and ordinary outlets. Fortunately the Horse and Hounds was not bad, some real people there and a choice of beers at less than a fiver. The barman was a young Frenchman who sounded entirely English but, he told me, when in France he sounded entirely French. We talked about travelling through his country and he told me of a village that had been taken over by the rich!

That night it rained heavily and some water crept into the tent. Also I experienced the worst cramp ever, whole leg cramp. Good job I was isolated, I howled. At six I packed the wet tent and sleeping bag and headed through the town and up the very steep hill towards Broadway Tower. Gosh that was hard going after a night of little sleep and much cramp, but the tower and the scenery was absolutely great. In fact I think that the northern end of the Way is the most visually stunning.

Finally, I crossed the main road at the top of the notorious Fish Hill and followed the Way down towards Chipping Camden. It passes the famous Dover’s Hill (strange sports) and there, right at the end of my trek, I missed the turning down to the town. The only sign I found was marked Cotswold Way Circular Walk so I followed that . Down and down it led into a dense forest with no glimpse of the town. The only person I met was walking her aggressive Pit Bull Terrier. She shouted to me that it was a bit emotional and she was correct, when it saw me with the GT it went berserk. She was literally rolling on the forest floor in an attempt to control the bloody thing. I like dogs, but I confess to being really, really worried by that one. I could hear it barking and snarling for ages afterwards. I finally completed the circular walk by climbing up through the steep forest back to where I had started on Dover’s Hill! It was then an easy descent into the rather lovely, but traffic infested, centre of Chipping Camden.

I had completed the Way at last. This last section had been a hot trek but I did feel happy that I had finally finished. A kind and helpful young lady took a photo of me and the GT outside the lovely Market Hall a few metres from the end point of that long and fascinating Cotswold walk.

A nice thing happened to me in Oxford

 

It’s now 20 years since I qualified as an Oxford guide and there have been many happy experiences, however a recent Bodleian tour will stay with me forever. A teenage girl and her family were on the tour, and towards the end I noticed that she was busily drawing in her notebook. Later I asked her what she had drawn and, smiling, she said, “You”. She tore the sheet out of her notebook and gave me the portrait. I was touched and insisted on giving her one my books on the Rogues of Oxford which she asked me to sign. A creative exchange of sorts.