First Day of Spring in Winchcomb

Our first spring ramble was great! Very scenic, fairly strenuous and quite muddy!






We crossed at least five streams and all of the low lying stiles, like the one below, were quite muddy as well.

Our route took us directly past this very cool old mill house in a tiny little place called Watershed. See the water to the right, that's where the water wheel was.

Just short of the halfway mark we encountered a rather large hill. There was considerable complaining by one team member and huffing & puffing by both. The view from the top was quite nice, see below. Funny thing was that after reaching the top of the hill we realized we were just wee bit off course and had we followed the correct path we might have cut off a good bit of the climb. One team member found this entertaining, the other did not.

The scenery was awesome start to finish. The view in the picture below was typical of the day, but this one had the horse in it as well. The Cotswold's probably have as many horses and sheep as people. The Cotswold's area economy has been based on the wool trade for centuries (cotton put the brakes on that) but still many towns and villages are named for their specific breed of sheep or type of wool they produce.

.... and more beautiful countryside ... we crossed a shallow clear babbling brook type of stream that was filled with small greens. Neither one of us has seen what watercress looks likes before it becomes part of a salad, but we are close to certain we might have seen it growing in this cold hilltop stream.

The ramble was excellent, seven miles in total. The only bad thing is it took us a little longer than planned and we missed Sunday Roast.