'Are you looking at me?'

The glorious sun shine, blue sky and warmth drew me out to drive up out of the valley and up onto the Cotswold hills. It is only three miles to the old village of Bisley and from there I headed north in a very rambling sort of way. I had in mind to visit Cranham woods and Miserden so I headed in that general direction.

It has been too long since I set off on one of these jaunts where I drive slowly and look out at the landscape of gently rolling hills covered with fields and occasional copses, and bordered by stone walls . Where springs pop up out of the ground, small valleys begin to form and often cut rapidly down the rough the limestone to form deep incised features where tractors can't roam and woods abound.

I ended up driving across Cranham Common and down into the village, up towards Birdlip through Buckholt woods before turning back for Ebworth, The Camp, Whiteway, Miserden and Edgeworth before completing the circle at Bisley again. Passing through one small hamlet, renowned for its colony I spotted a gate on one side of the road and a banked driveway to a plot of land opposite to it. I immediately parked, as I had seen these two parrots perched on the bank looking out over the landscape as if guardians at the gates.

A woman appeared and got into the car parked in front of the parrots, and she joked that I would should get permission to take pictures of them. It turned out that her partner M. had bought them a while ago, and many others objects of fun which were also dotted about their property. She said it would be fine for me to take the pictures as long as I didn't say where they were. After she drove off I was able to get some clearer shots and only then did I see the tiny ceramic sculptures of two people sitting on a bench and perched against a big rusting iron container. they were like little people and seemed to have been absorbed into the side of the bank where they sit together watching the world go by, just like in the old pictures of local villagers sitting outside their houses.

I wandered on eventually and went to Edgeworth church again and took some pictures of the sunny scenes. I have put some of them in this Flickr gallery, which I hope might amuse you.