Cotswolds weekend Saturday - 8 miles walked

This weekend's outing was supposed to be a 64 miler from Sutton Coldfield to Chipping Norton following what I think would have been an excellent route but at the last moment it didn't work out (don't ask).

Instead, and with no planning, it turned into a circuit of the Cotswolds. Starting from Churchill church, I headed across to Sarsden on the D'Arcy Dalton Way, a long distance trail that starts at Wormleighton Reservoir some way north of Banbury and meanders south to end at Wayland's Smithy, on the Ridgeway.

Stone memorial seat near Sarsden - Lord Moreton d. 1920 

On then to Bruern. At 6.45 I stopped to cook up a meal. This was the first outing for my Caldera Cone with Gram Cracker "stove", a miniscule titanium thing which weighs nothing and burns Esbit fuel tablets (or similar). I'll do a review of this some time. My first impressions are very favourable.


I carried on walking, going through Fifield. I was needing to top up my water and found a tap in a little alcove in a wall opposite the church. Lovely. Crossing the A40, the path crossed a field to pass by Tangley Hall and then a wide grassy path around a copse, dipping then into woodland. In here, and by a stream, I found a small crescent shaped secluded meadow and that is my pitch for the night. Lots of birdsong, an owl and (a short while ago) a noisy deer crashing through the undergrowth.
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