(Photo above: Painswick Rococo Garden) It’s easy to imagine Cotswold gardens are all roses and hollyhocks set against the backdrop of honey-coloured houses and gently rolling hills. In fact, while there are many beautiful cottage garden plots, the range is far more diverse. Eastern-inspired, contemporary and even a Royal garden, the Cotswolds illustrates every type of English gardening style. It’s long been a place that attracts gardeners. Leading designers Chris Beardshaw and the late Rosemary Verey have made their home here, there are hundreds of amateur garden clubs, and more than 100 gardens opening for National Garden Scheme charity. The gardens have been shaped by the passions of their creators, not least the plant-collectors of the Cotswolds. Robert Holford started what is today the National Arboretum at Westonbirt, home to five national tree collections – Gloucestershire has 33 National Plant Collections in total. Plant-hunter Henry John Elwes of Colesbourne Park discovered Galanthus elwesii, the parent for countless snowdrop varieties, while Ernest Wilson from Chipping Campden was responsible for introducing more than 2,000 species to the UK, including the kiwi fruit, mahonias and jasmines. It's resulted in gardens that are inspiring to visit. For beautifully planted borders set against a strong framework of hedges and walls, there’s little to rival the Arts and Crafts design of Lawrence Johnston’s Hidcote Manor Garden and Rodmarton Manor, home of the Biddulph family. Both have the ‘garden rooms’ and attention to detail so indicative of the style.

(Photo: Chad Williams / Creative Visual Design - www.creativevisualdesign.com) 30 years of Cotswold walking and as my wife might say…you haven’t got very far; you're still here! Seriously though, I have been involved in the business since 2007 and 16 years later I am still as passionate about the area as ever. I always knew when we took over the business that we wanted to concentrate on this area alone, as it was so special in terms of the walking, history, food and attractions. Since the end of Covid, running a service business has become more challenging with the number of accommodations decreasing as people retire and the rise of AirBnB/holiday lets, less food outlets and services in general as people switched away from hospitality to a more normal, regular lifestyle mix. I can’t blame them as we regularly see a turnover of staff throughout the establishments we deal with. One thing that remains constant is the drive to provide the best possible experience and our customer service to showcase the best the area has to offer. We have made a few changes during the year. We have expanded our team in the office and moved to bigger premises so the former home office has been gratefully occupied by my wife and her creative talents; more on that next month. We are merging Hikes and Bikes with Cotswold Walks to simplify our product offering and maintaining the self-guided and guided cycling which we plan to expand on in the future. We are looking to offer new tours and guided options for next year so please keep up to date in the next edition of our newsletter. This year has been extremely busy and an increase on 2022 and 2024 is looking the same. We are so grateful for the support shown to us by our existing customers and their generous feedback that provides so many referrals for future trips. All this is made possible by our amazing team here at Cotswold Walks, Adam and Barbara (now married), Jo in accounts and Julie who has recently joined us over the summer to help with the office administration. So much of what we do for clients is customised and that can only be done when you have local knowledge and are actually based in the Cotswolds. I often come across clients from other walking companies and they are normally lost or complaining about their route notes as being out of date. We are able to update our route notes whenever needed and the use of our digital walking app, to allow clients to track their position as they walk, makes things even more walker friendly. We have hosted many larger walking groups this year and this adds to the complexity of requests and possible solutions. We have had clients that have never left the USA before some coming to the Cotswolds which seems like a real adventure in its truest sense. We appreciate we only have one chance to get things right due to specialising in only one area of England but we are confident that added pressure is more than compensated for by the amount of positive feedback we get from clients. We have listed some of their testimonials below and hope you will join us in the future to see for yourself. My main piece of advice would be to book early if you are intending on visiting the Cotswolds in 2024. The term is “Revenge Travel” to get back to being active after Covid robbed us not just of loved ones, but precious time as well. There are walks to suit all abilities and days off to pursue cultural highlights as well. May I wish all those celebrating Thanksgiving in the coming days a joyful time spent with loved ones and wish everyone a peaceful and safe holiday season for the weeks ahead. Walk in Focus - The Cotswold Ring We have been lucky enough to discover the creative talents of Chad Williams and Carey Wodehouse from the USA and they were keen to walk in the Cotswolds following on from previous adventures in the UK. They have kindly allowed us to share their self-guided walking experience by producing 7 humorous and inspiring videos to capture their time with us. We hope you enjoy and please let us have your feedback on the YouTube channel and feel free to subscribe as we will be releasing a new video each week starting from today to take you through the holiday season and into the New Year!

(The above photo is for illustrative purposes only and is not of Rick and Lissie) Parts 1 and 2 Wednesday, September 21 After a taxi ride to the train station in Oxford, we took the Worcester Line to Moreton-in-Marsh (pop. 4,480), one of the many hyphenated town names in the Cotswolds, where town founders took a delight in adding geography to their residences. After a brief walk with our luggage from the train station to the hotel, we dumped our bags and took to the streets, in hopes of exploring the local shops. Alas, shops were closed at 5:00 PM and we could only comfort ourselves with a pint of ale and nibblies at the White Hart Royal Hotel, known to have housed guests since the 1600s (including Charles I while on military manoeuvres), with parts of the structure dating back to the 1400s. We enjoyed this hotel bar so much we decided to also have dinner there a bit later. We found the food excellent (best Chicken Supreme ever!), although a party of eight (work colleagues) seated next to us after a bonding experience made for noisy neighbours. We were forced to treat ourselves to a delicious toffee sundae for consolation. Our toffee scarcity in Canada seems irresponsible. We spent some time inspecting the ancient fireplace, ceiling beams, and noting some of the well-executed architectural modifications that have occurred over the years. After our meal, we retired to our very comfortable lodgings at the Redesdale Arms and watched a few minutes of Doc Martin before slumber took us away.

It has been such a dramatic time over the last 18 months, so I felt I couldn’t start this blog with the usual happy go lucky, “The 5 Best Pubs to Visit” or “The 5 Best Walks in the Cotswolds”. This blog is called the Cotswold Ramble, a name we chose because it has a wonderful double meaning. A ramble can be either a walk for pleasure in the countryside or alternatively it can mean to talk or write at length, in a confused or inconsequential way, so bear with me as I do just that. We constantly hear the phrase the ‘new normal’, and I am beginning to hate hearing those words, as I am sure there are many new phrases and terms which we all loathe hearing the sound of since the start of the pandemic. Whatever this ‘new normal’ actually is, I think these last few months have taught us that we should savour every moment, and to really connect with those around us. Throughout these difficult times my wife and I and our dogs, have treasured our precious time spent walking in the Cotswolds. I think it goes without saying that a walking holiday is indeed the perfect antidote to the stresses and strains of life, except, we’ve been unable to offer our wonderful trips to overseas travellers until recently, due to all the restrictions on domestic and international travel. As most of our stress levels have reached new heights and our mental well-being has been tested in ways we didn’t even realise, I don’t expect any of us are the same people since the emergence of Covid-19. We’ve all had to adapt, conform or rebel to suit our collective and individual needs. Society has become more polarized with those desperate to receive the vaccination and others, who for one reason or another, do not. I know that my mental health has suffered, both due to financial and health worries, but I remind myself that it is a scant sacrifice to what many are going through, and still do. Perhaps, those first few weeks were a novelty, if it can even be described in such terms, for those not yet touched by the loss of a loved one, then the reality of the situation hit home. Businesses like ours were devastated and people lost not only their livelihoods but family and friends. As we begin to emerge from this unprecedented situation and start to socialize and travel again, we all have our stories to tell. As the owner of Cotswold Walks, I feel our greatest asset is undoubtedly our wonderful staff, Barbara, Adam and Jo, and the thought of losing them was the most worrying prospect during this time. Without them Cotswold Walks would not be the company that it is and I am sure our clients both past and present would agree. We are thankful to be able to support them until the new walking season begins in 2022, and are also very grateful to many clients who have chosen to support us by keeping funds on deposit for a future trip. By the way, 2022 and 2023 look to be very busy with bookings already, so hurry up and book if you haven’t done so already. On a positive note, I would like to focus on what has been happening in the last few months. We have seen a re-emergence of inbound tourism; mainly from the USA and Canada and have also benefitted from clients here in the UK, who have been incredibly lucky with some perfect September and October weather. Going forward, many things will have changed forever, for example, protocols around health, social distancing and Covid testing. It is something we must learn to live with if we wish to maintain the right to travel. I mentioned earlier that there will be those who do not wish to be vaccinated and those that are happy to do so, but whatever your choice the world needs us to carry on and to support each other as best we know how. Travel is an important part of a caring and understanding society and sharing the vaccine worldwide is a vital part of helping to make that happen safely. I recently had the wonderful opportunity to plan and guide a tour for a family who came over from Dallas, USA. Their original tour, booked with another company called ‘Backroads’ had been cancelled, so we worked together, adopting the best bits of their original itinerary and improving on others, so that they could have their eagerly awaited holiday. Not only did we manage to save them over 50% on the original tour cost from Backroads, but they also had a fantastic time, below is a transcript of their comments. The initial step in planning any holiday, is for us to gain your trust, as many people will find us through the internet, and it sometimes takes a small leap of faith to engage with a company you have only read about on the pages of a website. With that said, we are only a phone call away and even if we are in a different time zone, we do pick up the phone outside of office hours. Perhaps we all need to take a leap of faith going forward and trust in building new relationships with local travel partners to really connect. We live in the Cotswolds and are here to assist when it matters most. Here is the testimony from the client; Our family spent a delightful week in mid-August 2021 with Andrew Guppy (the owner of Cotswolds Walks) as he expertly guided us through the beautiful northern Cotswolds. Andrew has an extensive knowledge of the area and a wide circle of friends and acquaintances that included the drivers that transported us and many of the people we met in shops and restaurants. He also has such a congenial and fun personality that he soon felt like a new friend of our family rather than a guide. Andrew did a fantastic job of adapting our walks to best fit our family's interests and skills. For example, when we asked questions about plants we saw along the way, Andrew came prepared the next day with books to help identify the plants. He also gave us some reference books about the history of the area when we told him that was an area of particular interest. Although it would be possible to do the walks on a self-guided basis, we found that in many places where routes cross or converge, it is difficult to determine where to go. We were so glad to have an experienced guide leading us so we did not have to deal with that complexity. We have done many guided trips around the world and our trip with Andrew ranks as one of the best experiences we have had. Having Andrew lead us through the Cotswolds allowed us to traverse the beautiful countryside worry free, learn more about the history of the area than we would have on our own and meet and interact with the local residents in a way that is not typically possible as a tourist. We highly recommend Cotswold Walks. -Dick Covington, Dallas, Texas USA

Our first blog post of 2021 is intended to reflect the fact that wellbeing – both mental and physical – has been at the forefront of people’s attention this past year. As we have a passion for walking, and it is widely recognised for its tremendous benefits as a form of exercise and a slower pace of travel, we wanted to share our tips and thoughts with those who might not have considered a self-guided walking tour before.

If you are a gardening enthusiast, the Cotswolds is the place to visit. The area is blessed with an abundance of extraordinary gardens, ranging from magnificent formal gardens to charming cottage gardens, with the honey-coloured stone providing the perfect backdrop for breathtaking displays of colour. We hope our article will inspire you to visit these extraordinary places!