Hugh's view from his garden

Hugh and I met up at the Council offices this morning to check some information prior to the Neighbourhood Plan steering group meeting next Monday evening. Unfortunately the papers came electronically from another source and were not in the form we expected. So I had to drive to Gloucester to pick up the originals, return to Stroud, get them copied and then go to visit Hugh at his home on one of the old roads leading up the hill to Bisley.

After we had achieved our goal, Hugh showed me the enormously long garden behind his house which climbs steeply up the banked hillside. It was wonderful to see how much had been achieved in a relatively narrow but long space, with workshops, greenhouses, flower beds, pots, herb beds and vegetables in raised beds. Finally at the top there are stairs which lead up to the front of a large garden cabin where his wife, Val has her study. We stood on the verandah and I gazed at this new vantage point at a scene I know so well. I snapped a couple of pictures of Hugh but I forgot to ask if he minded me using them here on blip. So instead here is a picture of some flowering honeysuckle climbing over the bannisters of the verandah with the roofs of his row of houses below. Across towards the Golden Valley you can see part of Thrupp, and then in the distance on the top of the ridge of hills above Stroud is Rodborough common, where an Iron Age camp was sited.

We live about three hundred yards below this view point as the crow flies, or on foot down the steep footpath to Daisybank. By car it is nearly a mile, but that is Stroud for you.