Cotswold Way - Birdlip

 I left Winchcombe with a belly full of crumbly cheese and walked through the fields to Belas Knap Long Barrow. From a distance it looked like a long hilly mound, but it is actually a Neolithic burial chamber with a false door at the front. Encircled by a drystone wall, entrance was from the side. It’s believed to have been built around 3000 BC with four different chambers and a circle of stones in the centre. The chambers were discovered to contain the remains of human skeletons from the Bronze Age. 

 

Much as I enjoy open fields and the cool breeze, I get most excited when I see woodland such as the one that I am approaching. I reached a timber gate hinged on a drystone wall with purple wildflowers to my left and a ‘common hawthorn’ tree to my right. The red berry-like fruit called ‘haws’ found on the tree are an important food source for birds and the petals used to be a common cooking ingredient in medieval England. For the next mile, the trail narrowed as dappled sunlight filtered through the foliage of the woodland. Low lying shrubs and grasses lined the path with the occasional fern making an appearance.
 

Back in the daylight, the path led me to Cleeve Hill with its expansive views across the countryside, towards Cheltenham and Bishops Cleeve. At 1,080ft (330m), the hill is the highest point in the Cotswolds. Nearby is the ‘Single Beech’ or ‘lonely beech’, the highest tree in the Cotswolds. A memorial wall surrounds the tree, with plaques in memory of those who were fond of the area.

Passing the Prestbury Hill Butterfly Reserve, it is known for the musk orchid and the bee orchid, and the southern portion of the reserve is home to more than thirty different species of butterflies such as the Duke of Burgundy that can only be found in England and the gorgeous Peacock with its eyespots and burnt-orange wings.

Descending to Dowdeswell Reservoir, one of few places where clawed crayfish can still be found, I continued through Lineover Wood. Known for its beech trees, this native beauty of southern England was used for furniture making and its nuts were roasted as a tasty treat and pressed for oil to fuel lamps.

Winding my way over farmland, I passed by the hamlet of Seven Springs, where a contentious discussion continues to take place as some believe it is the true source of the River Thames. Back up the hill with more gorgeous views of Cheltenham and the Severn Vale, I follow the escarpment onto Leckhampton Hill, and its distinctive limestone rock formation known as the Devil’s Chimney.

The rest of my journey on this section took me over a few more up and down hills, past the Crickley Hill Country Park with its many trails for outdoor exploration and plenty of woodland to get lost in. I finished my trip at the local pub in Birdlip and settled on a hearty chicken, mushroom and leek pie and elderflower spritzer with a dash of grenadine.

 

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My Dear Cousin - Time Off

                                                    10^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

Where I left you in my last letter I was twenty two, unemployed, and too ill to go back to work. I had worked myself so hard that I had enough money in the bank to last for a few months, but unemployment benefits were out of the question.

For the one part, there is no pay for a man too sick to work, and for another, technology had made them difficult to get. Back then you had to verify job interviews and filling out an application on line was just not going to cut it.

I have to admit that for the first time in my life I had time to do things, and I went out a lot more for about four or five months. To be honest I had suffered trauma and I really needed the time off. It was hard for me to get back into work but eventually I ran out of money.

It didn’t help that the family was pounding on me to go back to work, but the last month there I couldn’t pay my bills so I took another security job. This was the year after the trade tower attack, and 9/11 left Americans wanting more security but not wanting to pay more for it. The economic troubles of the time didn’t help much.

When I got back working (Pony Girl) wanted me to pay her back for covering my bills. This was not for the one month that she did so but for the eight months I was out of work. I was furious, having put her up for free for her last two years of college, and I wanted to be compensated for that.

For the next four years I would struggle fiscally with (Pony Girl) always making demands on me wanting me to pay for things that I felt I shouldn’t have to until I graduated college. After all, when she was in college I paid for all home repairs for a home we three had the same responsibility to keep.

I was angry, and I felt abandoned. I asked myself if things could get any worse but the worst was indeed yet to come.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - My First Job

                                                9^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

In the world of life events that run together I have to discuss my first job. In my last letter I told you about my (Pony Girl)’s college years and two of those I spend in high school and two I spent working as a security officer.

I had a friend who graduated high school a year before I did and I had paid to have him certified as a guard by a company that no longer exists. He then gave me the recommendation that got me my first job two weeks before I got my diploma, and the day I got my last check from the government.

Now, security is a hard field. No matter who you work for they all have some kind of chip on their shoulder. Many of them don’t like you because you work for them, have different color skin, or just plain get your hands dirty. The pay is low, the hours are long, and the work can be very hard. 

When my (Pony Girl) graduated from college it was finally her turn to pay some of the bills so I took a post with less hours hoping to spend more time with my own education. This proved to be a bad idea, because I just didn’t make enough to go to school. I had thought that as my two siblings had gotten money for school I would get the same, but poor fiscal planning on the old man’s part left me high and dry.

To be honest I don’t think I’d have needed his money if he had just taken me to a psychologist in high school.  In two thousand and one I finally went to a psychologist on my own and got to see a psychiatrist. A psychologist talks to you and works through your problems with you, but is not a medical doctor. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who gives you pills to make things better.

That experience changed my life, at least in the short run, I finally felt alive and had energy. It turned out that I couldn’t sleep without the medication the doctors gave me. I had spent the last ten years as an insomniac with hardly the strength to do much of anything. 

Also, in two thousand and one I got the pinch from part time work. My medication made me feel better and my work gave me as much overtime as I wanted. I worked every day for months on end, sometimes for more than twenty four hours, and I went to school.

I was on a post with no restroom and no bush to get things done in. My weight started dropping like a stone, and I overloaded my kidneys. I fell asleep on duty and was terminated. Well, no, I was terminated because the boss had a philosophy that he was doing you a favor because he was giving you a job and that you should bend over backwards for him.

It was a big fight at work to get a job that paid more and would give me enough overtime to pay my bills. Part of the problem is that I’m really good at security work and some of the hardest accounts, where the pay is lowest, were where I was most liked by the customer.

I was out for maybe a few minutes. Other guards slept half their shift and no one cared. It didn’t matter. In two thousand and two when I should have graduated from college I was out of work. I had money in the bank, but I was two hurt from my overloaded kidneys to go back to seek further employment.

I thought my family would help me. I was wrong.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - Pony Girl's College

                                                                                                                                                                 8^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

Another major telling event in my life is my (Pony Girl)’s college career. I don’t know if you heard, but she went to a prestigious college at great price, because her boyfriend had been attending the year before. He died in a rockslide before she ever started school on a vacation trip she had planned but never went on, because they had gotten into a fight.

I remember the news had called the house and ask me all about that poor fellow. He was an artist starting a comic book company, loved hockey, and was very soft spoken. After he died (Pony Girl) got is name tattooed on her foot. The funny thing is that she loved him in life but grew to hate him in death.

I do recall that she told me that she missed her last prom, because he didn’t want to go and wouldn’t let her go with anyone else. At the time she had a girlfriend as well as a boyfriend, so I don’t see why she couldn’t have just gone with her. Her boyfriend never knew, so far as I know, what she was doing, but we all kind of guessed.

The last I heard of that the man’s brother showed up at our house upset that he hadn’t heard from her in a long time. The next day it was reported on the news that her dead boyfriend’s brother had killed three people. I’m not sure if she dodged a bullet or fired the gun on this one.

(Pony Girl) spent two years at her fancy school. She was furious that our old man didn’t pay for all of it, but he paid around four hundred dollars a month. Then she lost part of her scholarship, and had to move back in the house with (Pickle) and I. She paid no bills during those two last years of college. She lived in the house rent and expense free because I felt that her college years were important.

I also assumed that when she was done I would get help with college. After all, both my siblings had been given four years of college assistance from the old man. (Pickle) got so much assistance that he once came home screaming, because he had to use his own money to take the bus.

In any case, when (Pony Girl) came home from the graduation ceremony she demanded we sell the house right then and there. She felt it was time for us to go our own ways. As it was all that remained of mom’s estate this would have made a lot of people happy, but I had just put this woman up for two years for free and she gave me no gratitude.

Worse, when I refused she said that “the executor is daddy’s sister and she’ll do what I want,” she then said she would just have my name taken off the house, and I would get nothing. That was twenty one years ago and she tried to get me out of this house a few times. She’s still trying, but that’s another story.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

Cotswold Way - Winchcombe

Following the acorn waymarker, I found myself on the Mile Drive, unsurprisingly a mile long trail section running like a canal through a mix of woodland and farmland. Carefully crossing over the A44, I entered a small section of heavily wooded area running parallel to the road. It doesn’t last long and then I’m back in the open fields, gently ascending a hill until I reach Broadway Tower, a classic folly with expansive views from the top.

Down the hill I went into the pretty village of Broadway. The main street is lined with red chestnut trees and Cotswold stone shops, galleries, and eateries. Broadway is closely linked to the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when artists and writers were drawn to the village’s tranquil atmosphere and away from the bustling industrial cities.

Climbing up onto the escarpment, I followed a broad track lined with trees on one side and fenced pasture on the other. At one point the track narrowed, to barely the width of my foot and was fenced on both sides. Widening once again, I arrived at Shenberrow Hill, the third highest point on this journey.
  

Following a steep descent into the village of Stanton and its small population of 198, I wandered through the quiet street and back out again into the countryside. It is hailed as one of the prettiest and most unspoiled villages in the Cotswolds and it is very pretty indeed.
  

I wound my way towards Winchcombe, first on a well paved country road and then through meadows with no obvious trail except for the marker posts guiding my way. Sections of drystone walls delineate the meadows from farmlands. These wall structures are perfectly stacked without mortar in-between and yet are amazingly strong. The base is usually 2ft (60cm) wide narrowing near the top to just 14 inches (35cm). Small stones are used to fill the gaps and a row of upright stones complete the wall. The lack of mortar allows air to go through the stones, keeping them dry. Well-built walls can last several hundred years as can be seen all throughout the UK.
  

My final stop on this section was the medieval town of Winchcombe. Dating to the Roman days, this once walled town grew to prominence during the Anglo-Saxon period. The main street is lined with a mix of 15th century timber-frame and limestone buildings.

Here, I’ll be looking for a place to indulge my taste buds with Double and Single Gloucester semi-hard cheese, some crackers, and a Gloucestershire cider. It is no surprise that both are closely associated with the Cotswolds given the many manufacturers and breweries found in the region.

 

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My Dear Cousin - Self Fulfilling Prophecy

7^th May 2021

My dear cousin,

It comes to me that in the years I spent in high school you may question the whereabouts of (Pickle). If you heard he was a convicted felon before the age of nineteen, hit and run, and he never drove a car again. At some point the old man, who worked for the department of disability, had him declared disabled and placed back on the government dollar.

After some point, and a major beating from the man, I insisted that if he was mentally ill he should be seeing a doctor. I figured that if he was sick he needed a doctor and if he had the benefit of a doctor I wouldn’t be taking so much of a beating.  Around the age of sixteen or seventeen I asked the old man if I should call the police when (Pickle) started wailing on me. He said “not until he hits you with an ax.”

About that same time was when my grades started failing. I recall the old man said “in Japan when you fail a test you kill yourself.” My take on the matter is that he felt I was a dud and not worth the effort. The funny thing about that is that is what we call a “self fulfilling prophecy”. He will fail, so I won’t help him. Without help he failed.

In any case, (Pickle) did go to City College for four years but never made much progress towards graduating. It was more just something for him to do rather than a hope of him getting a job. Disability would look after him his whole life, and the man was just too disagreeable to take orders from anyone.

I honestly feel that by the time I got out of high school the family felt that he should be my problem. That meant that I could never have a family of my own as a crying child would drive him to rage and violence.

If there is one thing that happens in my life it’s that people tell me how to live it. People should be more interested in their own lives. We all need to make our way on this lonely rock in the universe, and the best way we can is with our own eyes and our own hearts.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

 

My Dear Cousin - My Body Shut Down

6^th May 2021

My dear cousin,

As we have established, by the age of fourteen I had lost my mother, was living in a slum suffering abuse on the regular, and my old man was only a part of my life on weekends. It should be no mystery as to why I had trouble in high school. I had problems and when problems go ignored they just get bigger and bigger until they force you to do something about them.

My body shut down, and I was having trouble with my grades. I remember vomiting every morning and asking the old man to take me to a doctor, but he refused. I couldn’t concentrate on most of what I was reading and had trouble holding my hands up to type.

I once mentioned to the old man that I had setup my keyboard in such a way as to make it more ergonomically sound, but my hands hurt when I typed. He sat me down and said “I’m tired, my back is hurting, I’m worried about a fight I had with my wife…” and so on. I asked him what his point was and he said I complained too much.

He labeled me a hypochondriac and the whole family called me a hypochondriac for more than ten years after that. Hypochondria being a real medical condition were a person feels bad and believes themselves to be ill were no cause can be found I asked to be treated for my problem.  You treat hypochondria like you do depression, they could be just the same thing, so I asked to see a psychiatrist. The old man said “it’s all in your head” and refused to take me.

I did participate in sports in high school. I fared as well as anyone who is dangerously depressed, but the teams I played on were so small they couldn’t practice without me. Years later my old man would mention that I passed my sports physicals as evidence that nothing was wrong with me. I reminded him that the doctor had ordered a blood test, and he had refused to take me. 

I nearly flunked out of school my third year. The old man screamed and screamed, and insisted I was just lazy. That was his Modus Operandi, he would first laugh at my problems, and when they didn’t go away, he would then scream at my problems. Never did he try to resolve them in any meaningful way. 

Two weeks before I graduated high school I got my last check from the government. Survivors benefits from my mother’s death.  That same day I got a job. After that, well, that’s for my next letter.

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal