Happy new year to you all and thank you for reading my blog and I hope you continue to enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. It’s been going for a while now and to be honest I only started it for myself so I have a reminder of places we have been, things we have done etc.

So as we start the new year we are still in Cirencester.

After taking photos of the fox feeding at night I saw him a couple of times in the daylight and really wanted to get photos of him in the daylight. A bit of patience and it paid off.

As you can see he is very healthy. Over the next few days he was always about in the day but very wary of people but it was so nice to see him in the daylight.

Xmas came and went, not as fast as I would have liked but it’s over now. I don’t like Xmas for a lot of reasons. It’s too commercial being one of the main reasons. Boxing Day we decided to go for a walk in the Bathurst estate grounds completely forgetting the Boxing Day hunt would be on. We wondered why so many people were out walking towards the town.

The hunt is what they call a drag hunt, no it’s not a load of drag queens out on a jolly around the countryside. It’s where a scented cloth is dragged along and then they follow it. As with all hunts there are protesters who are against it and while walking along one of these latched on to me and started asking what I thought.

My reply was as much as I don’t like cruelty to animals hunting is a tradition which has been going on for many years and will continue to. We turned off from the main event and walked around the back streets where there were some lovely old shops with matching names.

Our friends on site mentioned about going into town one lunchtime for a beer. There is a lovely little bar called the Hop Kettle. It’s a small brewery from Swindon who brew their own beer and have a great selection to choose from. Not being one to turn down the offer of a pint we strolled into town with them.

By the time we came out of there it was dark, not because it was late but because it gets dark early. Our friends left before us but I had to have another beer. As we walked up through the town towards home I was getting hungry and wanted to stop at every opportunity to eat but I resisted as Nikki was going to cook a quick meal when we got back. The market square was empty, just the lovely H van which is a coffee stall in the daytime.

For over a week the weather was really murky and damp which I hate along with wind and rain. My bike has not been out for a couple of months which for me is a lifetime. It’s just so difficult living like this in the winter when I come back from a ride covered in mud and the bike has to be washed off before being put away. I lose my MoJo at this time of year and just wish I could hibernate and wake up in the spring.

New Year’s Eve was another damp night and again glad it’s all over now and we are heading for better weather, not straight away but we’re going in that direction. Think positive.

On New Year’s Day Nikki’s mum was 90. She is in a care home in Devon and they made her a lovely cake and made sure she had a wonderful time. We rang her to wish her happy birthday and she seemed a bit confused with the whole thing.

As the mist and damp weather went it turned to cold frosty weather but brighter days. I like them, so on with my hiking boots and off across the fields for a hike. Through the Bathurst estate and out into open countryside where I don’t see anyone and just hear the bird song.

Passing ivy lodge which is in the grounds of the Bathurst estate, which you can hire out for weddings etc. It’s recently been restored but you need a lot of money if you want to hire it out. I made do with a photo of it.

As I did a big loop on my walk I came back from the fields into the Bathurst estate again and went up to a pond I like which was all frozen. Ivy house was in the distance. Passing some frozen thistles which looked nice. I was tempted to skate on the ice on the pond but with thin ice and my weight decided against it. I don’t like being cold and being cold and wet is even worse.

We were due to go to Moreton in Marsh when we left Cirencester but got a phone call from the site saying they were having some work done on site and it would be noisy. We decided to still go and shorten our stay, so we went there for a couple of days and then came back here to Cirencester yesterday.

While there we walked into the town which is a typical Cotswold old town. Really nice with nice old buildings and expensive shops. We had lunch in a small cafe. To be honest I could have stayed in there all day. The service and food were excellent. The market was on in the square but it was not very good mainly stalls selling big knickers and rugs and a few independent ones. Back at the site the workers were ripping up the roads and it was like being on a building site. We were glad we went to moreton in marsh but glad to leave at the same time. It’s only an hours drive each way.

Nikki goes off to see her sister in a weeks time leaving me home alone. She has promised to stock the fridge up before she goes but Cirencester is a good place for me to be on my own without a car. I have fields to wander around, I have trees to talk to and pubs nearby and a hopefully a fridge full of food. And I have Google to see how to cook the food.

I leave here in a couple of weeks while Nikki is away to go to Broadway which is where Nikki will come back to join me. Broadway is another old Cotswold town but we have never been before so will be nice to see it and there are some nice walks from there.