Nudging Perfection

Beautiful spring.

My weekend was truly nudging perfection- this is how it went...
On Friday after work, collapsing with sleep yet prickled with excitement we went to Burwash Weald, to be picked up by a whacky taxi driver whose car was like an airplane, with small screens in the back of the headrests...
Dinner at the Wheel Inn and sexy rest back at the house.
We tried for an early morning but still only managed an eight o'clock start. However, by the time we reached the Cotswolds and we were on the 'local roads' perfection was literally pushing out at us. The tiniest roads and all so green around us. Lush and peaceful, embracing England.

We had a moment with a herd of cows, who all came to look us over, docile eyes rolling and big wet noses pushing through the fence. We city folk took picture after picture...

Painswick itself was wonderful. Ye olde England indeed. We stayed in a 16th Century house with thick walls and low roof beams, a perfect little view across the Painswick valley through the lacy-veil like flowers of a cherry tree.
And it was sunny. Proper colouring-our-skin sunny. We walked and lunched and read and kissed and sunned ourselves. I don't know if the sheep of Painswick had ever seen a Wonderbra before but now they have.

We napped for almost three hours, then watched a couple of documentaries and went in search of dinner, which we found at the Falcon Inn, where there were certain kitchen troubles and staff shortages, but nevertheless, the kind and uber-professional Kiwi manager managed to rustle us up a superb meal, and the wine also, was wonderul. (shiraz)

All weekend I had this strange feeling of being not-quite-here, as in, not really in England. I felt as if I was in Australia, and then other times I didn't really feel tied to a place at all. I was so relaxed that nothing entered into my sphere of happiness, except the very cause of it, which was G.

Sleep that night was deep and completely enveloping. Breakfast however, was underwhelming.
We took the car and drove towards Winchcombe and then walked up to Belas Knap, a Neolithic Burial site which really impressed me. Then in Winchcombe we saw the wickedest gargoyles ever and lunched in a 15th Century pub- a good (and huge) Sunday roast.

Sudeley Castle, giant carp, the Slaughters and a very snobby place to have tea, and then back to Painswick where we could only get wine with room service and only a pack of vegetable crisps left in the car.
All that was left on Monday was the Rococo Garden and the long drive back to Burwash.

All this sounds like an idyllic weekend away, which it was. But the amazing thing about it, and why I say it was nudging perfection, was not only because I was there with my greatest love, but because some sublime calm inhabited my soul, so that not only were the usual stresses of my days absent but I was absent from the push and pull and worry of time, and space also.
I was in a dreamy place, tied to neither georgraphy or time and I was bubblingly, truly happy. And rested.

Seventeen days and counting. And there goes the luckiest girl in the world.