Cotswold Ladies

Clad in Barbour jackets and look-alike Range Rovers, the female ‘nouveau riche’ of the Cotswolds hurtle along country roads they probably think they bought, along with their extended Cotswold stone houses.

In olde worlde stone gastropubs these scary ladies talk in loud penetrating tones while waving hands bedecked with large rings and wrist chains. They can’t all be Bridge-playing presidents of their local W.I., but they have the appearance of organisers of peasants. Their holidays are a riot of activity and champagne buckets: “we walked 50 miles that week”; a comment soon forgotten when it transpired she “couldn’t get up from a chair unless she had taken her steroids”. In an hour her farmer husband managed to add five minutes to the conversation with an air of reserve borne of years of talking to cattle more receptive to his views.

Those who only stand and serve in garden centres and tea shops are the original breed of Boadicea-like Cotswold ladies; tough-looking and tough-speaking who scrawl chalk notices on boards;

“we do not take credit or debit cards”

"Stand here until you are shown to a table”,

and who wince before casting withering glances at the newcomer who has the temerity to ask:

“are the scones freshly made?”

And when you ask if the proposed new reception and garden centre to be constructed in the grounds will follow the pattern of Wyevale with their Cotton Traders, leather jackets and household knick-knacks you wish you hadn’t!

“Oh! No! Not here. That’s something we wouldn’t do”.

You feel you have asked the Queen if she shops at Aldi.

I’m exaggerating. Ignore the four-wheel-drive traffic-packed villages of places such as Moreton-in-Marsh and the Cotswolds are a joy to behold – especially in Autumn.

Go to next Post to see pictures of the Batsford Arboretum and the gem of the Millhouse Hotel restaurant at Kingham, a few miles down truly English country roads towards Chipping Norton.