The Events of Monday, May 2, 2011

                The British Isles are in the same time zone as Portugal, which is an hour ahead of the rest of the Continent. So at 6:00, my body said, “It’s seven o’clock -- time to get going!” This was no problem for me, for I love to walk through pretty country like this.

                Our landlord and host is a professional artist, David Birch. Among the many wall-hangings in the cottage, we found several of his watercolors and wood-block prints. Though he is busily preparing works for a one-man exhibition in a few weeks, he took time this morning to give us a demonstration. Pam and Ben stayed in the cottage, but the girls and I ventured out into the chilly air to watch. A bit embarrassed by the lack of proper paints, he used some thirty-year-old student watercolors, along with a few tubes of higher quality paint. We walked behind the cottage with easel, paint, and paper. David set up the easel facing the property and explained the planning process. I was surprised to hear how much math he used in his explanation. He surveyed the view, chose a focus (the cottage), considered the boundaries of his scene, and warned against placing any large object in the center (a nearby tree, in this case). With a pencil, he sketched the contents of his subject in the upper left-hand corner. After this, he continued to work with pencil, outlining the cottage, the trees, the path, and the brook. Then, he began the painting process. One always begins with the lightest colors, he explained, for, while you can always make it darker, you can never bring the light back in once you’ve made it too dark. We enjoyed watching the artist create. It took about an hour in all, and the result (once framed) may adorn a cottage wall soon. We helped him tote his materials back into his studio and returned to our warm cottage for breakfast.

                The word "Cotswolds" comes from the term for stone sheep shelters ("cots"), plus the term  for rolling hills ("wold"). In the fourteenth century, the wool business was highly profitable, and successful herd-owners accrued great wealth. Chipping Campden was a center for wool sales and distribution, so many a sheep tycoon built his fine home here. Rather than a drafty wattle-and-daub hut with a smoke hole, he could boast of his sturdy stone house with newly-invented chimney.

                We saw several of these homes this morning when Caitlin led us on a walking tour of Chipping Campden. “Chipping” is an Old English word for market. There is evidence of Campden town’s existence in the eleventh century, and, by the twelfth century it had received a charter as a borough and held a market. We saw the market, the old church, the graveyard, and the ruins of a manor house in what is now a sheep pasture. We also toured the Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden. Wilson was a botanist explorer, who spent many years abroad, gathering exotic plants and bringing them back to England. Among several plants in this garden that he named is the Davidia involucrate (aka “Handkerchief Tree”). Because we are here in May, we get to see the reason for its nickname: at the end of each branch is a four-sided white “bract” that does indeed resemble a handkerchief. Quite a sight!

                Some of the names we encountered sparked our curiosity. Among the wealthiest citizens in the 1600s were Lord Baptist Hicks and, Lutheran Yokels. Was it common to name your children after your church? I’m glad this practice stopped before the appearance of the Reformed Methodist Union Episcopal Church!

                Anxiously watching the day slip away, Caitlin herded us back to our cottage to pack a lunch, and we drove out to the expansive (and expensive) Cotswold Farm Park. It is an unusual place, a strange mixture of petting zoo, exotic animal preserve, playground, and theme park. At first, we saw, alongside the cute baby lambs, crowds of little kids. We thought we had perhaps chosen a park geared toward younger kids. (Yesterday was May Day, so today is a “bank holiday,” when banks, schools, and other public facilities are closed. Maybe this is part of the reason there were many families with small children visiting today.) But when our four kids received the bottle of milk to feed the lambs, the smiles on their faces confirmed that they are not too young.

                We also attended a lamb exhibit, featuring lambs born today and yesterday. They stumbled around on their wobbly legs to find and feed on their mama’s milk. The presenter explained the system for marking the sheep with spots of red or blue dye, indicating their quality. Past the cute baby animals are several fenced areas with exotic farm breeds: unusual Cotswold varieties of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, ponies, chickens, and ducks.

                After that, we arrived at the playground (with swings!) and the “bouncing pillows” – like bounce houses, but without walls! Finally, we explored the maze and “woodland adventure”. Both of these activities impressed me as an educator, for they deftly combined a fun physical activity (negotiating a maze of fences, balancing on a tight rope, etc.) with little educational quizzes (e.g., what animal starts with an “O” and the male is called a “jack”, the opossum or the otter?). We enjoyed exercising our minds along with our bodies, and we were there when they closed the place down at 5:00.

                For dinner, we tried to eat like the British: we had a small pork pie, a small chicken pie, and green beans. And it is unanimous for the Taylors: we like pie! After cleaning up from dinner, we quietly read books and blogged (catching up from our busy days of transition). By nine o’clock, the sun had set, but the sky was still light. The kids went to sleep to the soft sound of syncopated dove songs.