I used to spend my life in my car. Living north of London, if you want to get anywhere by train, you have to go south. Unfortunately, this is a) time-wasting & b) expensive. I got to know various motorways exceedingly well. There were countless stones and sections of crash barriers on the M25 & M6 that I got to know intimately, stuck in one jam or another. When I checked the mileage on my car, it hadn't even reached 30,000 in the last 5 years; that used to be my annual mileage. Why am I wittering on about motorways and annual mileage? I hear you mutter. On Tuesday, I got back from
& ’s memoir retreat. I took a well-worn route home the A40. I joined it at Burford. It has changed. There are things where things weren't before. The first one is good the rest not so good.I stopped at The Burford Garden Company. When I was working and driving, no way did I want to stop. But now my time is entirely my own. It looked like an interesting garden centre. I pulled into the car park, and the first thing I saw was a bookshop. It was not just your average bookshop. Although, as I discovered, none of The Burford Garden Company was average. Our local garden centre has a book section with cheap books. As you enter, you are greeted by an incredible array of gardening books of all kinds. I thought that was it until I looked through the glass into the main, massive part of the bookshop.
As soon as I walked in, I was hit with that new book smell and hundreds of amazing books, mainly hardback coffee table-type books. But a smattering of everything. One book, Shark Photography, was enclosed in an iron cage at £1,500 per copy. There was also a mahoosive David Hockney book of prints, £20,000 per copy. Amazingly, there were no do not touch signs, except on a couple of antique toys. You could look through any of the books. I got lost for a while. I resisted the temptation to buy a Gaudi book. But in the end, I bought a cookery book, two small poetry books and a beautiful book about writers' writing rooms. I know I shouldn't, but I love my books. I wandered around the rest of the garden centre, unlike my local one in every way. I commend The Burford Garden Company for opening a bookshop that is different from the many shops closing. But, it is in a very affluent area. I did enjoy getting lost for 30 minutes in another world with the beautiful perfume of new books and a friendly, knowledgeable bookseller.
That was the good bit of the changes. I got back in my car and headed towards Oxford. It made me realise that lockdown did stop time for me as the building world continued. When I used to get on the dual carriageway section of the A40, there were no roundabouts until the road went down into two lanes. Then I got bewildered as a bloody great round thing was attached to a huge estate in the middle of the A40. The changes continued into Oxford, and new buildings and estates were everywhere. The same has happened in Cambridge. The new buildings looked as though they could be in either place, square, generic and boring. I am very much in favour of building affordable homes. But are these houses affordable? Has the infrastructure been adapted to consider all the additional people who will live there? They will need to travel, be educated, get health care, etc. Rant on a soap box over.
Complete change of tack. I had a lovely few days away. The weather was mixed from torrential rain to sunshine. The company was great. All the women on the retreat were inspiring and had incredible stories to tell. Clover was so generous with her time and knowledge. Tanya is the hostess with the mostest. Sam opened up her stunning home to us all—an inspiring day.
I stayed at the Crown Inn in Church Enstone, which is definitely to be recommended. I opened my blinds in the morning to see a beautiful piebald mare in the paddock next to the Crown.
Have you been somewhere recently that made you think how it had changed?
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Gosh, the Burford Garden Company sounds extraordinary, Jo! So glad you had a good time at the memoir retreat - how lovely. ☺️
One of my favourite places to visit and daydream what my home and garden could be The Burford Garden Company ❤️