Week 4, part 3 – a prize for the most boring blog update so far

On Tuesday (6/7), I drove up to Cleeve Hill, the highest ground in the Cotswolds. Less a single hill and more of an enormous plateau, most of it is actually a common. This is the view south to Cheltenham, with the famous horse racing ground visible to the right of the city, in the foreground:
















Cleeve Hill Common is also home to a public golf course that was surprisingly affordable (£25), though I didn't look to see if they did club rentals. The walking paths go right through/past many of the holes.


 













My circular walk around and over the common was only about 5 miles, but the scenery was—yet again—spectacular. Ordinarily, a walk like this would only take about 2 hours, but I stretched it to nearly 4 hours because the weather was good and it was such a nice place to be. No crowds of walkers to navigate, but just enough activity (walkers, a few cyclists, golfers) to make the place interesting. 

The next day I had my only truly lazy day in almost 4 weeks. I never even left the house. I spent a couple of hours doing yesterday's blog update, then made one of my favorite meals: fried eggs on black pudding.

In case you haven't come across it, black pudding is made from . . . [skip down if you're easily grossed out by slightly unconventional foods] 

. . . oats, pig's blood, beef or pork fat, barley, and spices.

Only £1.50 for a package of four at my favorite grocery store, Waitrose. I love how the store has a shopping category called "Haggis and Black Pudding."



And that was my day. Well, more cooking, more time to read Howards End (which is going very slowly, obviously), and watch some of my favorite British TV shows: Heartbeat, Inspector Lewis, Vera, Antiques Road Trip. I only half-watch most of these, but I've come to love Heartbeat, a police/crime drama I'd never heard of before this trip. It was made from the early 90s to 2010, and it's set in a 1960s Yorkshire village. Just seeing the old cars and signs is reason enough to watch.

And now it's Thursday morning. I will go somewhere today, but I'm not sure where. I may walk into the center of Cheltenham (about a mile), though I'm a little tempted to drive down to Amberley, where Betsy and I stayed 3 years ago.


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