Following on from last week, I’m now turning my attention inland. I
live just east of Bath in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. For some time now we’ve have also found ourselves labelled as part of the Cotswolds. I always believed this title related to the Gloucester area to the north of us, but no, you can now see these road signs on the edge of our village, so it’s official.
Although I love Bath very much for its history, diversity and, of course, amazing restaurants and shopping, I’ve always been a country girl. When I was small the village we lived in had no services at all – shop, school, post office, pub – they were all found in the next village. We did have a bus service but had to walk a couple of miles to catch a train. When I passed my 11+ I left behind the few miles I cycled to school and found myself doing a round trip of twenty miles a day on two different trains to Marlborough (photo 1). It was certainly a complete culture shock from the small world I’d previously occupied. I did this for a year until my family moved west where I swapped trains for buses (again two) but thankfully this time my school was only 8 miles away in Bradford on Avon (photo 2).
Today I’m lucky enough to still be able to call myself a village dweller and the local landscape enables me to capture some fabulous photographs of the countryside which surrounds it.
Next week I’ll be taking a trip abroad to Spain, the Czech Republic and Italy, three of my favourite holiday destinations.
JO LAMBERT 
I love Marlborough Jo. Although haven’t been there for years! And the last time we were in Bath was a weekend away when the boys were quite young and they stayed with grandparents.
Fab series.
Thank you Shaz. I only spent a year at Marlborough but have been back on days out and the place still evokes a lot of childhood memories. Have promised myself that once we get into warmer weather I’m heading for Avebury which is not far from Marlborough and am going to walke the stones there. Another mystical place like Stonehenge and Glastonbury.