Cox's Meadow

Len had to go to Cheltenham for an MRI. We took the 'fast' route via the M42 and M5. No time to stop for coffee. The procedure lasted an hour and he said there was a lot of clanking to be heard.

Meanwhile, Basil and I strolled round the corner to The Meadow Café, which stands at the edge of Cox's Meadow, a flood alleviation scheme. Cheltenham has suffered badly from floods during the latter part of the twentieth century so this scheme was badly needed. Flood water accumulates in the depression and then gradually drains away.

We called in on my Uncle David in Prestbury on the way home. He reminded us that they had had to have water bowsers outside their homes in the summer of 2007 for six weeks or so, after incredible rainfall and flooding. That was the year that George and four of his friends cycled from John O'Groats to Lands End and had to negotiate the floods in Gloucestershire.

We drove back in a  much more leisurely fashion through some Cotswold villages. Very naiice and quaint.