A SEAT WITH A VIEW - BUSCOT WEIR

We had a great service at Church and as the weather looked reasonable with blue skies and sunshine, we decided to go out for a drive.

We ended up at a little village called Buscot and after parking the car, found the village shop and café.  We went in and as there were only five tables, we shared for a while with a very nice young couple who, on seeing my camera, asked what I was photographing.  I explained about Blip and said that as it was a sunny day, I was looking for anything interesting.  The Tea Shop was doing a roaring trade and at one point there was standing room only.  We had a very nice cup of tea and coffee and a piece of carrot cake that we shared and as the sun was still shining, we decided to make our way towards the weir.

However, as we walked along a very rutted and puddled path towards Buscot Weir, on the River Thames, it started to snow quite heavily and because it was so cold with a bitterly cold north wind, we looked for somewhere to shelter, and found a tall hedge.  The snow shower didn’t last for long though, so we started walking towards the weir again when I spotted a seat nearby.  

I was only thinking yesterday that I hadn’t done A Seat With a View for a while, so I asked Mr. HCB if he would “do the honours” and sit on it for me.  Of course, as he is paid such a handsome fee (!) when he helps out, he graciously sat there so that I could take photographs.  

You can see the difference in the weather just by looking at the photographs - in the middle one, Mr. HCB is hunched up and it looks very cold, whereas in the bottom middle photograph, taken 15 minutes later, the sun was shining.

We then walked on towards the weir, passing Lock Cottage on the way, with drifts of snowdrops in the garden.  It was quite noisy hearing the water rushing over the weir and although it was very cold, there were quite a lot of people around especially near the lock.  However, we couldn’t see any boats around, so it must be quite boring for the lock keeper just to have to sit in his little shed all day - bottom right in the collage.

Buscot is an attractive little village in Oxfordshire;  it has a village hall and a clock tower and next to the hall is a covered well with a standpipe and a working tap - on the left of the collage. Many of the houses in the village are owned by the National Trust and let to long-term residents.  

On our way back to the car, we stopped at the gateway to Buscot Manor, top right in the collage, which is now run as a B & B - a young man saw us and said we were welcome to go into the garden if we wanted to take photographs.  It turned out he was the son of the owner, and had popped in to see his Mum and was hoping she would invite him to have Sunday lunch with her, otherwise he said, he would have to go home and cook his own.  

It was too cold to hang around for long and we hadn’t really come out to walk over muddy fields, so this will be put on our list for another visit, perhaps in the summer. 

“I want to turn the clock back
     to when people lived in
          small villages and
               took care of each other.”
Pete Seeger