Back In The Shire

December 15, 2019 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Those who follow this blog, or otherwise know me, will know that I am an urban man at heart. For most of my adult life, the city – specifically London – has been the place to live and the country has been something to visit. Now I’m retired to the country and visit the city. I had a good dose of London life earlier this month but, for the last week or so, I’ve thrown myself into rural living back in Gloucestershire; it has been relatively various, worthy and entertaining.

The rainy weather hasn’t prevented me getting out for daily, lengthy walks. LSW and some of her local friends have taken me on some routes I have not ventured on before and that has been enlightening. I continue to get to know the area and to enjoy walking in it. I’m comfortable that my steps target for the year is going to be met easily – one of the few 2019 resolutions that will be, I fear.

A New Walk Through Beech Woods

Of course, Christmas is coming (putting my 2019 resolution target for alcohol free days in jeopardy). I attended my first party of the season last week courtesy of the management of the Horsley Village Community Shop. Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) works there very part time and so was invited gratis. I paid an entrance fee to attend alongside her. It was a very lively and pleasant celebration and a chance for me to get to know a few more local people. The event packed out the village pub for the second time in a few days following the monthly village quiz a few days before.

The village shop, like the village pub, survives on the margins of commercial viability. The shop is reliant on hardworking management and a squad of very part time volunteers like LSW. I have been tempted to join this assorted band but have focused instead on helping with the Neighbourhood Plan and a small volunteer group looking to promote carbon neutrality in the village.

Delivery of Fresh Duchy Farm Vegetables To The Horsley Community Village Shop

Already, the Parish Council has supervised the planting of over 100 small trees this Autumn as part of a drive to increase carbon sequestration across the Parish. More planting is planned and there are even grander plans in our nearby town of Nailsworth. There, a symbolic start was made with the planting of a single holm oak and the distribution of around 100 smaller trees to those, including LSW and I, who turned up to watch. We picked up a guilder rose tree and now need to complete the bargain by planting it.

Ceremonial Tree Planting In Nailsworth – The First Of Many!

One further bit of worthiness was a bit of renovation of the Horsley churchyard paths that I arrived just in time to make a minimal contribution to. Village activities like these all help to make me feel part of the rural life here after decades of city living.

Gravel Laying In Horsley Churchyard (That’s My Spade Resting Lower Left)

The Neighbourhood Plan is now drafted and under review by Stroud District Council. The hardcopy available in the village shop looks great and the pictures, especially, bring it to life. It will be interesting to see what critique the Council provide – especially of the proposed ‘local green spaces’, one of which is adjacent to our land.

Comments and subsequent reworking of the Plan are not likely until next year and current attention is on consultation around the wider Gloucestershire County Local Plan. I have some work to do in the New Year to help provide the village council with comments on this Plan from a carbon neutral and sustainability point of view. I also need to analyse and present some recent village survey data on thermal efficiency. Until all that is done, I don’t feel like tying myself down to a shift in the village shop.

Christmas preparations are underway in our house. Some of the Christmas lights are already up. The Christmas tree is bought and will be erected and decorated next week. That is all LSW’s province.

Christmas Lights In Our Kitchen/Diner Reception And Down The Stairs

My main Christmas task is to develop the annual family Christmas quiz. This will follow Christmas dinner (with the 19 members of LSW’s family including me and our sons who will all be with us this year) and has become a bit of a tradition over the last decade or so. I have also taken on making Christmas party hats from old newspapers and packaging these up with jokes from the Internet and a chocolate. The first batch of ten hats is nearing completion – this is a small stab at recycling rather than buying lots of throwaway crackers.

First Batch Of Christmas Paper Hats (Tasteful Financial Times Pink)

I’m back up to London next week to see the Moving to Mars exhibition at the Design Museum that Eldest Son is keen to see and for which he has bought tickets. The visit gives LSW and I a chance to wish Eldest and Youngest Sons’ girlfriends happy Christmas personally. From London I will then travel north to Nottingham to do the same with my Mum and Dad. Then, it will be back to the shire once again for the Christmas Pub Quiz and the rest of the festive period. All good!

Autumn In My Little Town

November 9, 2019November 9, 2019 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

View Of Nailsworth Looking South

I’ve been retired for well over two years now. New daily routines have shifted as I have settled into retirement and as the seasons have cycled around. However, when I am not away from home, one of the daily constants has been that I walk into the local town of Nailsworth to pick up the newspaper and buy the day’s groceries. It’s been one of my great and most consistent retirement pleasures.

These walks have been particularly splendid recently as the Autumn colours have intensified across the hills and valleys through which I walk. Also, in recent weeks the streams in the valleys have gushed with copious amounts of rainwater and have provided a noisier soundtrack to the burgeoning Autumn colour.

Late Sun Catching The Tops Of Trees In Ruskin Mill Valley

There are multiple routes and detours that I take to create daily variety. However, the most rewarding walk is through the bottom of the valley between our home and Nailsworth centre. I thought I would share a few pictures of this frequent and favourite walk.

Satellite Picture (Courtesy Google) Of My Walk Into Nailsworth – From The Blue Dot (Upper Downend), East Then North-East Up The Valley To Nailsworth

The start point is, of course, my home in the hamlet of Downend near Horsley. Our field has a small stream running through it. This joins the Downend stream nearby and I head north-east down through its valley in which our hamlet nestles. When this reaches another, larger valley I continue north to where it opens out to a confluence of rivers around which Nailsworth has thrived, first as a mill town and now as a small (monthly) market town.

Upper Downend

As I leave Downend, I pass some old cottages and houses and cross the Old Horsley Road. I then dip downwards into the larger, wider valley flanked by dense woods to the east. Following the ever enlarging stream, I pass some small fields and a couple of pretty lakes. The larger of these is often the haunt of a swan, herons, kingfishers and several varieties of duck.

Downend Stream

Autumn Lake, Horsley Bridge

Much of the land in the valley, and up the slopes to the east, is owned and managed by Ruskin Mill Trust. The college here caters for challenged teenagers. The grounds include two historic wool mills, several acres of woodland, a biodynamic livestock and fish farm, a shop where some of the produce is sold, a forge, a popular café, and an arts centre and music venue. Locals like me are privileged to have access to these grounds which are always evolving in interesting ways under the management of the Trust and which often teem with fish and birds.

Craft Workshops And Running Water In Ruskin Mill College Grounds

Views Near Ruskin Mill College

Beyond the college grounds I cross the road and the stream (now a small river) once more. As I approach the outskirts of Nailsworth, I look out for dippers in the stream. I had never heard of these birds before seeing them here and also in Downend itself. They are shy but fascinating to watch as they live up to their name by dipping their heads up and down and dive into the water to catch their prey.

Dipper Habitat On The Outskirts Of Nailsworth

Nailsworth sits at the junction of two valleys and is overlooked by typical Cotswold woodland and hillsides (‘Cotswold Tops’). The best time to visit is early morning when wood smoke and mist often sits above the town but below the hill tops. The floral displays in the town this year have been award winning and many of the narrow streets and Cotswold stone buildings are always attractive.

Nailsworth Clock Tower

Like many such towns in this age of the internet and same day delivery, it is a struggle to establish a thriving retail business in Nailsworth. There is a persistent turnover of small independent shops and probably more shops selling small gifts and vaping equipment than is necessary. However, some good clothes, homeware and hardware shops have prospered. There are also a few decent pubs and café/restaurants, plus – critically for me – a newsagent, a small supermarket and health food store.

Roofs Of Nailsworth

I’m an urban man at heart – the country was always a place to visit rather than live in through the first 60 years of my life. I still hanker after London having left it upon retirement. But this Cotswold landscape I now find myself living in is very attractive. While I still can, my daily walks into the local town will continue to help me experience and appreciate it.

Postscript: I mentioned that Ruskin Mill College have a small music venue and Long-Suffering Wife and I thoroughly enjoyed a gig there last night. The main act was Trio Dhoore who are three young, charming Flemish brothers who play diatronic accordion, guitar and, a first for me, the hurdy gurdy. The music was wonderfully deep, rich and warm and the banter between tunes matched this warmth perfectly. The trio of brothers seemed to enjoy the evening as much as we did; it was a lovely couple of hours.

The Rather Wonderful ‘Trio Dhoore’ At Ruskin Mill

Neighbourhood Activity

September 8, 2018September 8, 2018 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

For over three years, Long-Suffering Wife (LSW) has been helping development of the village Neighbourhood Plan. This aims to set out for the District Council how the people of Horsley wish to see the land in the village used and developed over the next 25-30 years. The Plan has required much consultation, drafting of fine words and picture taking, and very many meetings for LSW. I also got involved earlier this year in drafting and formatting a particular section on preferred green spaces in the village.

Picture of Our Village Taken From The Draft Neighbourhood Plan Consultation Leaflet

The group co-ordinating the Plan development, including LSW, are now on the final push to get the plan to a state ready for review by the Council and a further round of local consultation. Last week they asked for help to structure the Plan appendices and to achieve greater consistency of look and feel across the whole document, mainly by reducing the range of formatting quirks employed by each contributor.

Following prompting from LSW, I volunteered. LSW has long wanted me to get more involved in village affairs and this was my chance. Little did I think that it would end up echoing the intensity and effort of my pre-retirement days but, after 25 hours of sitting at my PC editing the document over four days, I’m done!

There may be further rounds of such intense effort required following review and consultation. However, I’m a Windows user and the bulk of the others who have technical and design input are Mac users. The two are not compatible and so I’m ready to bow out. Even if I am not required going forward I have earned some ‘brownie points’ with LSW.

That is just as well since I have proactively planned to be away during the village fete where LSW has a key role organising the Village Hall catering. Some time ago (admittedly when I knew the date of the fete), I arranged to meet up with my Best Man (BM) in Cambridgeshire and to fit in Forest Green Rovers’ (FGR) away game at Milton Keynes Dons. My absence this coming weekend, which will include a trip to London too, is being frowned upon by LSW. But at least I moved the Neighbourhood Plan forward beforehand so, on balance, I’ve got away with it.

I have been away from home quite a lot recently. In late August I was in London to catch up with a couple of past work colleagues and to see a band that I have been tracking for about 5 years. They are The Correspondents and, although the music is not all to my taste, the live act is as full of energy as anything I have seen. I even played a part in the lead singer’s crowd surfing exploits and got my hands on a (minor) celebrity for the first time. I recommend checking out video of their gigs – the lead singer’s moves are amazing.

The Correspondents At The Old Queens Head, London

Following that, I went to Nottingham to visit my parents and see FGR win at Notts County. It was great to be able to show my Dad how far FGR have come since I first started supporting my local team 20 years ago.

Despite being away so much, there has been time to participate in a couple of regular village events which I used to miss when working in London: the monthly Village Quiz Night (we came second again) and the monthly Men’s Night. Both are good ways to keep up with village gossip.

The quiz is particularly well constructed and run and is a very enjoyable challenge. Our team, usually of six but occasionally augmented by visiting offspring (Middle Son (MS) joined us a month ago and someone else’s daughter joined us this week), is varied. That means our knowledge doesn’t overlap too much and we are contenders. I usually can contribute on sport and geography but I’m too slow or too dense to add much elsewhere. These events are nice slices of rural life I didn’t have prior to retirement and both events help to keep our pub in business.

One less alluring aspect of rural life this week was an invasion into our garden of 70 sheep through some broken fencing in the adjacent field. Our grass got a welcome trim and some unexpected fertiliser but a few of the fruit trees and my leeks took a bit of a battering. Fortunately the farmer was nearby and available. He shooed them back within 30 minutes or so and damage to garden and sheep was insignificant (indeed, the sheep probably enjoyed the change of routine). Oh, the joys of country living!

The Quickening Pace Toward Christmas

December 21, 2017December 31, 2017 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

In my working life there were, of course, deadlines every week, every day and, often, very hour. I have grown used to not facing them since retiring. Now, the days tend to drift by guided by to do lists with ambiguous or undetermined timelines and I can do what I want, when I want. That’s great. However, the last couple of weeks have seen a quickening of life’s pace, a variety of social events and a few deadlines that have shaken my reverie.

The main imperative has been to complete painting of the window alcoves in the upgraded TV room before arrival of the plumber to install new radiators. My inexperience in decoration led me to be surprised by the need for four coats of paint, day long drying times in between each and sanding down after each intermediate coat; that all created a lead time that left me feeling under significant time pressure. However, I managed to meet the deadline.

This early success (another 90% of the room remains to be decorated!) was despite a brief trip to London to enjoy a catch up with old friends from our time in Kew nearly 20 years ago. We enjoyed a delightful evening party with and then a lovely bagel-based breakfast in two different couples’ houses. Where we stayed overnight was almost directly opposite where we lived for several years.

An even longer standing friend, dating back to LSW’s and my first months in London 40 years ago, visited us in Gloucestershire. We had a few bottles of wine with her, Youngest Son (YS) and his girlfriend. That was sufficient to make the idea of going to the local village disco seem like a good idea. That turned out to be excellent with music expertly sampled from the last 40 years and daft dancing fuelled by inexpensive but powerful cocktails. We had such a laugh! My challenge with the decorating was more than matched by the challenge LSW faced in having to get up at 5am next morning to take YS and girlfriend to the railway station – ouch!

Other events this week have included celebration of the re-opening of the main road between our village of Horsley and the local town of Nailsworth. The closure has been for over 4 months and has been an economic blow for the local pub, The Hog. We had a few drinks there to mark the road re-opening and the end of the ‘rat run’ congestion in the lane outside our house.

I also saw the new Star Wars film with Eldest Son (ES) and YS. I’ve seen all the Star Wars films but I struggle to follow the plot that has run back and forth through them. ES and YS tried to educate me by getting me to re-watch the previous film earlier in the day and their guidance helped. The latest addition to the series is well-made and the formula worked again. It was rare fun to have an outing with two sons.

Amid all this hustle and bustle, dancing and decorating, I have managed a few long walks. The weather has been variable as we have approached the year’s shortest day but retirement offers the chance to get out and about whenever it perks up. I’m very lucky to find myself retired in such a lovely part of England and be able to enjoy it.

Mossy Banks and Big Skies near Horsley

Finally, Happy Christmas to you all. Have a great festive period.

Happy Christmas!

New Experiences

September 6, 2017 / fgrtommo / 2 Comments

I have been encouraged by the variety of things I have found to do out here in rural England having retired from job and metropolis.

Clearly there is far less variety than in London and we often have to drive rather than walk, as before, to get to it. But what I am finding is that the relative lack of choice is actually creating a refreshing expansion of my experience by forcing me to see and do things that I would probably not have considered pre-retirement.

There have been a few very enjoyable examples in the last couple of weeks.

Last week and this we ventured to a local, independent, single-screen cinema I have never visited before in Wotton. It turns out to offer a limited but attractive programme of films about a month old that are in the tier below the Hollywood blockbusters that dominate, rather tiresomely, the local multiplex.

Wotton Electric Picture House

In both visits I saw films (Maudie and The Big Sick) that I would not normally have chosen to go out for but which turned out to be very good. More predictably, given that Maudie is a gritty biopic about a painter of naïve pictures in Nova Scotia and The Big Sick is a rom-com with a happy ending, Long Suffering Wife (LSW) also loved them, so they can come recommended. Had I still been working in London, I would have missed both.

Saturday evenings have long been the only ones that I usually spent fully out of London. Post-retirement I can afford to use them less sparingly. Last Saturday we went to a concert of classical Spanish guitar in our local village church. It wasn’t well publicised or particularly well attended. Pre-retirement, I wouldn’t have spotted that it was on and, even if I had, I doubt I’d have used a precious Saturday evening on it. But I was so glad I did – it was a remarkably high quality performance by a relatively local chap called Alan Brinley Shaw.

Alan Brinley Shaw at Horsley Church

I’m looking forward to more of the similar.

Changing Routines

July 18, 2017July 24, 2023 / fgrtommo / Leave a comment

Two (relatively) big events have occurred in the last week. I saw my first two Forest Green Rovers Football Club games of the new season (both friendlies against much smaller clubs). The new football season is starting at last and I have my ticket for our first game in League 2. I can’t wait.

Goal!

Brimscombe & Thrupp vs Forest Green Rovers

Brimscombe & Thrupp vs FGR

Second thing was the celebration of the replacement of the collapsed and then stolen local post box. I’m now in a rural community (Downend, Horsley) that comes together for things like this and pulls out all the stops – rather different from the polite insularity of the Barbican in London. So, we had our local MP, speeches, balloons, tea and cake including one decorated as a parcel; lovely!

Celebrating Reinstatement of Downend’s Post Box

Cake to celebrate reinstatement of Downend’s post box

I wouldn’t say that I have found a new routine yet but there has certainly been breakage of the old one. Obviously the structure of weekends and weekdays has gone. As someone already retired told me, “Every day is a Sunday”. Also the routine of getting up and changed for work and then the whole structure of work, coffee, work, lunch, work, tea, work, home has gone. So far, that is not missed at all!

I have kept some things the same. For example, I’m still getting out of bed pretty early, I’m drinking coffee in the morning (if only to keep the addict headaches away!) and I’m only having bread at weekends. Some things that I only did at the weekends are now happening every day such as the 50 minute return walk to the local town (Nailsworth) to get the newspaper. I’m a creature of habit at heart.

Some routines I’d like to preserve have been harder to maintain. For the last 12 years I have been counting the number of no-alcohol days I have each year. The intention has been to increase them each year. The graphs I maintain show I have been partially successful over the years but this year’s target of 125 days is in serious jeopardy now I have retired.

It’s just so tempting – especially in this sunny weather – to slip onto the terrace with a beer or stroll up to the pub for a pint (or two). The temptation is even greater after I have undertaken things on LSW’s list of activities long postponed in anticipation of my retirement. A start was made yesterday to clearing out the stables – starting with twenty 30kg sacks of render that was massively over-ordered last year and is now past its use by date. After filling a skip with stuff like that, a beer was definitely required! And so another no-alcohol day slides out of reach….. oh well….

My Retirement Journey

I've Retired! What Next?

Horsley Gloucestershire