In the Cotswolds:
Sheep, Scones & the Realisation That I'm Not a Country Person.
I woke up at 6:47 AM as my body calls this, which means it's around three hours below civil ability, because my partner had read somewhere that "the Cotswolds are best experienced at dawn." It is yet to be determined who can afford good sleep right around dawn, yet there I am squinting at the clock and wondering whether true love can ever be really anything but mutually assured sleeplessness. By the time I was eight, we were winding through lanes so narrow I actually became genuinely frightened of going anywhere near another vehicle. The hedgerows closed in on either half like green walls, and I found myself holding my breath every time we rounded a bend, half believing we were going to run into a tractor head-on and have to turn a loop half a mile and feign not thinking this had ever occurred to us. The Cotswolds — I quickly learned, don’t believe in pavements, passing areas or any sort of personal space for cars.
Our first stop was Bourton-on-the-Water, which sounds like it should be a theme park, but is also somehow real. The river Windrush flows through the centre of the village, clear and shallow, with the slight stone bridges running through it every few metres. Tourists were already out in force, cameras set on, filming the ducks with the fervour of wildlife documentarians. I joined them, obviously. One of the mallard had great postures (thus I had seventeen photos) and I have no regrets. Which is basically how I ended up paying four pounds fifty for a flat white. The whole time, a partner suggested we get coffee because it tasted like it had been filtered through a sock, so I drank it gratefully because caffeine is caffeine, and the café had WiFi. As I walked through the village, I realised how everyone appeared well and without effort. With women in Barbour jackets and wellies who presumably had never seen mud. Men in cable-knit sweaters that likely cost more than my monthly grocery bill. I was wearing trainers I’d owned since 2019 and a coat with a small tear in the pocket I kept wanting to sew. I convinced myself that this was real, that I was a free spirit unencumbered by material burdens. Then I caught my reflection in a shop window selling three-hundred-pound cashmere scarves and adjusted my hood so that the tear was not visible. We made a drive to Bibury next because they online said it “the most beautiful village in England” and I have never been able to resist a superlative. Arlington Row stood out. The old weavers’ cottages lie along the river, honey-coloured stone glistening in the morning light, a sight so impossibly beautiful, you half expect an entire filming crew to break out from behind a bush. For a good 10 minutes, I stood at it and stared while an older man walked by with two terriers, gave me a look that said, "Yes, it’s pretty." Move along." I moved along. Lunch is a pub lunch, because if you're in the Cotswolds and you're not dining in a pub that's been serving ale since the Tudors, then what the hell are you doing? I ordered the fish and chips, which came on a wooden board, not a plate, because plates are apparently no longer functional. The fish was great, the chips were thick and proper, the tartare sauce actually had capers in it too, which I initially thought were peas, and I accidentally tried to stab myself with my fork for a while until I realised. My partner had a ploughman's lunch, for twenty minutes explained the differences between cheddar and Double Gloucester, which I nodded through as I worried if we could ever have time for ice cream. It was supposed to be a “gentle stroll” through the countryside that afternoon. I should have known better. “Gentle” in the Cotswolds means “there is a path, but it will be muddy, and you will come across livestock.”
We wandered among a field of sheep who stared at us blankly, judgmental eyed, as sheep have watched over thousands of years. One followed us for a while, which I found flattering, until my partner told me it likely thought we had food. I didn't have any food. I had a half-empty bottle of water and a growing sense that my fitness level wasn't what I'd expected. There was a hill. I don’t know who authorised this hill, but I want a word with their family. Halfway up the slope, I paused, “to admire the view,” which is “I need to catch my breath and not have to say ‘I’m not in shape’.” However, there was a truly magnificent view. Rolling hills in every direction, small patches of patchwork fields, little clusters of stone villages, the whole thing like a painting that you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room, but better because it was real and you were being there. I stood there, kind of sweaty, and it went some way. Not a huge spiritual awakening, exactly, but a kind of quiet understanding that places like this exist, that people are here, that there is an alternate life in which fresh air and stillness prevail and there are no tube strikes. We finished our day in a tea room, as the Cotswolds run on tea, and I respect them as such. I got a cream tea and put on the jam first, because I am from Devon so certain loyalties you can’t shake, even in foreign lands. The scones were warm, the clotted cream thick enough to take up a spoon, and, for a second, it all felt just right.
My partner fell asleep in the passenger seat while we drove home, and as I drove home through those narrow lanes by myself, I felt strangely capable. The sun was setting, making the stone walls turn gold and I considered how I would describe what this day would be like for me. I would most likely say those ducks, and that crazy coffee too much, the coffee that was expensive, the sheep that judged. But I also want to talk about that feeling on the hill, the quiet one, the one where they said ‑Maybe I could be a country person after all? Not full-time, obviously. I still require Deliveroo and some decent phone signal. But I was intrigued by the appeal for a day, in the Cotswolds. And that feels like enough.
