Walking with Romans

The Romans in Britain grew grape vines. Around 2,000 years ago, they dwelled in Gloucestershire, and built villas in Woodchester and Stonehouse. Now there are vineyards in both Woodchester and Stonehouse, on the slopes of Doverow hill, providing grapes for the Woodchester Valley Vineyard.

GG and I began our walk at Stonehouse railway station, which once served the Stonehouse brick and tile company. Eventually we ascended Doverow hill, skirting several acres of protected woodland area. As we climbed higher, we gained a fine view of Stanley Mill and the villages of King's Stanley and Leonard Stanley, below the escarpment that culminates in Coaley Peak picnic site, a well known beauty spot. Once we reached the top of the ridge, we could see across to All Saints church at Selsley, famous for its stained glass windows. The vineyard glowed green far below us.

I might add that conditions were dreadful for photography: the skies were hazy, the weather muggy one minute and blowing a 'sea breeze' the next. The directions on the walk leaflet were inadequate, but we did manage to descend to the vineyard and to walk among the vines, eventually finding the railway bridge that led us back towards town. We had a picnic lunch near the running track of Wycliffe College, the local public school. No one else was there. I'd brought carrots in a herbed yoghurt dip, and Castello cream cheese oatcake sandwiches, and a flask of tea. GG let the side down by only bringing ham, and not even a rotten banana! There was cake too, but we were too full for that.( We had already been to an art exhibition earlier, with friend AK, who then took us on to a cafe and forced us to eat millionaire shortbread!)

We went a bit wrong after that and ended up walking back to Stonehouse along the main road. I won't make THAT mistake again, but I'll certainly do the walk another time. It was fascinating in both its history and geography. I'd have loved to explore the wood more.

When we got back, I did some chores and finished reading The Hours for my course. Then I sat down to watch the DVD before the football began. It got to 1 hr 23 mins and refused to play any more! I cleaned the DVD and tried again several times. Nada. Only 25 minutes left until the end. Extremely frustrating.

I rang a friend, but my phone was paired to my new Bluetooth headphones which were upstairs. I thought the
phone was broken. Duh! I twigged and sorted it all out in the end, am going to borrow a copy (all my classmates seem to have one) and watch the rest tomorrow. Then i cooked supper and listened to another episode of the Shedunnit podcast with the headphones on. (It's great not to get tangled up in wires, I have to say. What took me so long to go wireless?)

Now I'm too full to eat raspberry tiramisu, the one I first ate yesterday, having made it on Friday. That's a shame, as it's a good'un. This reminds me, I didn't blip yesterday. No reason really, just a busy market day, and I was too lazy to take a pic afterwards. I want to get my greetings cards sorted for once and for all, into sensible containers for transporting. To this end, I ordered about 17 plastic boxes. I've been resisting the lure of stackable plastic boxes for years, but everything else is too big, or too small, or falls apart if it rains, or damages the cards. Plus it's easy to clean plastic. I foresee many, many years of cleaning and wiping down everything