My mum visited at the weekend, so I made a chocolate and orange cake, and then we visited bits of the Cotswolds.

We first headed to Chipping Norton, where we gazed at the old Bliss Tweed Mill, before we headed onwards to the Rollright Stones.

My mum and I walked around The King's Men, examining the lichen and the texture of the stones that had been weathered over the years, looking into the holes in the stones. We stood in the middle of the stone circle and found a phone number, with a name next to it: "Meghan". My mum was convinced that the stones were changing shape and that sometimes one looked like a pig, but we did not call Meghan to ask her.

We walked on from there to another part of the Rollright Stones: the Whispering Knights. These were part of a burial chamber. The knights were turned to stoneby a witch who heard them conspiring against the king. The last stone we saw was the King Stone, a solitary crooked stone.

A folly was our next stop. We climbed Broadway tower and saw the good views of so many different counties. Apparently, they used to bathe on the roof.

We drove through Moreton-in-Marsh and other such places and then ended up in Bourton-on-the-Water. We crossed rivers and then headed to the Dragonfly Maze. The maze was designed by Kit Williams, who designed that book where you had to find the hare - Masquerade, but in this maze, you had to find the golden dragonfly by solving the clues.

After finding the golden dragonfly, we escaped the maze and headed back to the car, which was just when the rain started. As we drove back to Oxford, a gorgeous rainbow appeared, stretching across the fields.

Sunday, we went to Harcourt Arboretum and looked at the bright red acers. Then back to Oxford and into the centre, for a bit of shopping, and then a walk back past Parson's Pleasure and along Mesopotamia Walk and then Cuckoo Lane, and then more chocolate cake.
Penrith Castle
Penrith Castle
At the edge of Derwent Water, she waits for children to have their photographs taken by their parents, with the lakes and the fells in the distance. The children smile momentarily and then disperse to climb across tree roots, trying to get down to the lake.

When she stops waiting and looks through her camera lens at the lake and the speckles of islands covered in trees, the scene doesn't look as beautiful as in the pictures she's seen. In the future, instead of remembering what she actually saw at the lake, she will choose to remember someone else's photos, when the sky was a richer blue and the water twinkled in the sunlight.

They walk up hills and over streams and past some lambs and only get a little bit lost before they reach Castlerigg Stone Circle. The stone circle is situated amongst breathtaking scenery and although the stones are a lot smaller than those at some stone circles, it is still impressive. It is very windy and cold and crowded there, and she wants to hug him tightly and hide behind a stone to keep warm, like many of the other people seem to be doing. Instead they walk in opposite directions around the circle trying to photograph stones that no legs or arms stick out from.
Derwent Water
Derwent Water

Back in Keswick, they drink coffee in a café that sells chocolate shots in chocolate cups and joke about going to the nearby pencil museum to see the world's largest colour pencil and then after that going to see everything that claims to be the "world's largest". Outside there is a congregation, singing loudly because it is Easter.

After that, they visit the Bowder Stone, which is a large boulder that appears to be peculiarly balanced. There are wooden steps up it, so they walk to the top of the rock and then back down it. There isn't much to see at the top of the rock, apart from more rock, since it weighs about 2000 tons and is about 30 feet high, 50 feet across and 90 feet in circumference. There are people trying to climb up the sides of the rock with ropes.

At sunset, they head to Penrith and wander around the castle as the sky turns pink and blue, before ending the day drinking sangria (not at a tea-room though, so not quite 'the finest wines available to humanity.')

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