Rachelle planned out a Saturday's adventure exploring the Cotswalds for the Cohen family. Bright and early, we jumped into the car, excited to experience some new English countryside and villages.
Well...
Actually, Rachelle and I were excited, Liv was mildly interested, and Noah was adamantly opposed. He wanted to stay home and play Legos, 4-square, and Nintendo DS. Unfortunately for me, Noah recalled and bolstered his stance with a true story of when Pam, Giles, and I stood together in opposition to Jerry's tightly packed plan to see every cathedral and castle in Spain during a family vacation when I was in college. Despite Noah's best efforts, we eventually dragged and pushed our grumpy troop into the car and set off.
First, we headed to Upper Slaughter and parked our car in the tiny stone village. Rachelle had read about a walk from Upper to Lower Slaughter (unfortunate names for such picturesque riverside villages). The walk was great, through fields and along a shallow river. Noah even perked up a bit and enjoyed having leaf races in the water with Liv.
Since the walk was only a mile, we continued on to Bourton-on-the-River, a town about 1 1/2 miles from Lower Slaughter. Bourton-on-the-River has a perfect little downtown, and is regularly voted the prettiest village in England. There is a shallow wide creek running through the middle of town, where kids splash about; little cafes and boutiques line the streets; and every little building, store, and house is a delight of stone, ivy, leaded windows, with many of the establishments over 400 years old.
There was one drawback to Bourton-on-the-River...it is a total tourist town. It felt much like Disney in its perfection, attention to detail, and complete infestation of camera-carrying tourists (see my pictures ;) ). After walking about, we headed back up to Upper Slaughter along the same path, which I later found out is an ancient Roman footpath. We stopped in Lower Slaughter for some ice cream. Along the rest of the walk, Liv and Noah sketched out a new version of the Billy Goats Gruff play (see video), inspired by the many unique and antique stone bridges spanning the creek.
On the way home, lucky us, Liv had to use the loo, which allowed Rachelle and me to detour into Bibury, a village we wanted to visit but didn't want to press our luck with Noah. Bibury was a delight. Again, the village had a great wide creek, with swans, ducks, and large trout. Noah pointed out that Grandpa Mike would love to see these 12-inch plus monsters swimming peacefully just below the surface. The town is home to a row of gabled houses built in 1380 and remodeled in the 17th century and a great Saxon church, that might date back to around 700 AD.
Today, I woke up excited and nervous about my first soccer game with Belvedere. Surprise, surprise, it was raining. We heard that this has been the rainiest August since 1912. However, as I reached the pitch it stopped raining, but was blanketed in fog. You could barely see 10 feet in front of you. The fog lifted just at the kickoff, and we had a great match. The other team was well young and fast, and it was clear why they were a Division I outfit. That said, our Division III team, actually dominated most of the match and barely missed 4 or 5 opportunities in front of the net. I had a great game in the defense stopping the forward I was covering, who was half my age. Literally. The hightlight of the game came near the end. We were down 3-2 and had a corner kick. I asked the sweeper if I could run forward for the corner kick. He said 'no', but I had already started forward and kept going. My forward noticed I was going in, started chasing after me, but he was a step slow and I headed the ball into the back of the net. 3-3. Glory. This moment of joy was only partially dimmed when they soon scored on us and won 4-3. All in all, a great showing for Belvedere.
This afternoon, the family went down to Bath's own Royal Victoria park, a 57-acre park, which opened in 1829. The kids' part is a children's dream. There are zip lines, many different structures for kids of varying ages, climbing things, carousels, and ice cream. See the picture of Noah and Liv at the top of some webbed climbing structure.
All in all, a great weekend. School starts for the kids in 3 days!
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