England Stories

Stories from the road
Lower Slaughter Village
September 21, 2018

This morning was cold and windy in the Cotswolds. We layered up and headed to a village on a river. We chose an alternate route from the one we had been given due to the weather and some aches and pains.

The town was quaint with lots of tourists. We had a scone and talked with a couple who were tending their Westy. Our friend Dennis has had three Westys since we have known him, so we knew the breed. The people were very friendly as most people here seem to be.

After they left a man wearing Patagonia clothing appeared. I had on my Nano Puff so we struck up a conversation. From Utah, he and his wife had been hiking in the Dolomites in Northern Italy. We told him we were doing a walking tour in the Cotswolds and he established type A credentials right away when he asked me how far we walked each day. He was a nice person, and I would have liked to have talked to him more.

Eastern Europeans seem to make up much of the workforce in this area. At our hotels, we have chatted with people from the Czech Republic, Romania, and Hungary. They are all very friendly and appear to be competent workers.

We came upon a  group of boarding school students on a backpacking trip today. They were energetic and fun. One tramper was from San Francisco. I asked him what he was doing in a British boarding school, and he said his father was working in England. In response to my question about other Americans on the hike, he said he was the only American in the entire school. Though tired, the hikers were responsive and humorous.