Nobbut Grass On't Top

Minchinhampton Common : July 2013 (Alan Burnett)

If you fancy a change of scene you can move house. But there is all that packing and cleaning and sorting and searching. Far better to get some of your closest friends to move and then visit them. Having successfully relocated D&S to Spain and thus opening up a whole new landscape to us, we have just returned from a few days in Gloucestershire where our oldest friends J&E have just relocated to. Their new home is in Minchinhampton, a very old market town a few miles away from Stroud. In many ways the scenery is not unlike the steep West Yorkshire valleys that we are so familiar with. The industrial ancestry of the area is similar to these parts : textile mills made full use of the fast flowing streams that swept down the valley sides. And at the top of the steep valley sides there are open, unfenced area. But whereas round these parts, those open areas are bog-filled, heather-clad moors, down there they are common pastures upon which cattle and horses roam freely. as we would say in these parts, "there is nobbut grass on't top".