Rest Day in Painswick

Day 3 Hiking.

Saturday, July 19.

Steps 11,682

Tibbiwell Lodge, Painswick.

“It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” Rumi

I want to walk this road!!

Decision was made yesterday that even though it is early on, I must rest in hopes of completing as much as possible of the journey.

No trail hiking physically and mentally as I am finding all aspects more challenging than expected. Also due to all the various physical issues of the past few months I had not done the preparation/training that typically should have happened. Never got the mileage above 6 miles in the past 8 months, or carried the backpack more than a few times with only about 10 pounds. Now to do 12-16 mile days with serious Hills is difficult and what seems to me, a heavy pack.

And, sadly have to admit I am not a Spring Chicken anymore. Still this will be attempted, as much as possible.

Along with the naughty knee, and now loss of brace, hurt the left foot on the first day, so there is trouble generally. Feeling Old these days.

In the absence of climbing up and down the beautiful Cotswolds - stretched out and dozed in morning. Wandered about Painswick in afternoon using a ‘strolling map’ collected from the information center to find any/all famous sites.

The B&B is on Tibbiwell Lane the steepest road in Painswick.

The Wedding of the Year was held today at St Mary’s Church. The program of the event was printed as a newspaper with 4 pages. The reception was listed as happening at the family farm.

That reminded me of the wedding procession witnessed near Ingleby Arncliff where the bridal party rode to the wedding on a hay wagon and on returning the bride and groom lead the procession sitting on a couch placed in the front end loader bucket.

Palm trees grow here. Also every foot and inch on property is well used.

Tuna for lunch, on a scale of 1-10 about a 3.

St Mary’s Church.

Painswick’s ‘chief claim to fame is the churchyard. At the entrance are the village Stocks. An oddity in that the miscreants’ legs were held in iron hoops (made it easier to have tomatoes tossed at them).

“The churchyard also contains perhaps the finest set of carved table tombs in Britain, surrounded by 99 yew trees.”

Talked with a lady in St Mary’s tending the flowers and asked her about the carved figures of a man and woman. She said “they were nobody, no one knows who they were, or why they were in the chapel”. They must have been important back 400+ years ago for someone to have carved their images. Artists didn’t randomly make portraitures without financial backing.

The ‘flower lady’ also pointed out the graffiti carved onto a pillar done by the Parliamentarians while they were barricaded in because of the Royalists outside using canon and fireballs to try to drive them out. There is still a canon ball lodged up high someplace near the bell tower.

1634 Graffiti by bored soldiers.

Drapery by the bolt. What can be seen is about as wide as the shop was.