THE SAD COTSWOLDS

 Snowshill Manor, near Broadway

S U N D A Y,  8  O C T

Had the nice waitress at breakfast that we had last night, two fab boiled eggs, and pineapple juice. Chump and me wandered around and saw the Lygon Arms’ extension (it's quite good).

We left and drove around. Mild, damp-looking weather is just the right type for Cotswold country; it practically looked like Scotland. The villages are very sad - they’re all empty and deserted.

“I don’t like the buildings: they’re made of the same old yellow stone and it gets rather tedious.”

We drove to Snowshill, a Jacobean house full of the most marvellous old things. Daddy was intensely interested. Apparently the house was bought in 1919 by an architect and he filled it with everything he had ever collected: four-poster beds, lutes, spinning-wheels, bicycles, toys, clockmakers’ machinery, all in a terrible jumble but it didn’t matter. The garden is delightful - very informal with no real boundary between it and the fields - and there are two wonderful barns, both small, both of oak and stone which, as Daddy pointed out, are exactly the same colour. That’s the secret of good architecture. The window going along the wall of one of the barns was so beautiful I did a quick little sketch of it. Just imagine a window like that in the sitting room of a modern house!

Then we went to Hidcote Manor Garden. Not a very remarkable garden but I suppose it would have been better if the sun was out. One thing that was really lovely was this sort of ‘walk’ where they've cut beech trees to a completely square shape; a whole lot of them are joined together. Had picnic lunch in a field.

Home in very good time at quarter to 6. I washed my fringe - it was appallingly curly.