A SEAT WTH A VIEW AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HELEN!

You may remember that Mr. HCB often goes off walking with his friend, Barry, on a Tuesday morning but as it was Valentine's Day, he decided that he would take me out instead, which was very kind of him.

It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies and the sun was shining so we set off towards Highworth, intending to go to Stow-on-the-Wold.  However, when we got to Burford, about half an hour's drive from where we live, we decided that it looked good, so as we hadn't been there for sometime, we stopped and found a parking space in a FREE car park!  That doesn't often happen, so we decided to make the most of it!  We wandered along by the River Windrush, and I saw a lovely Muscovy duck having a snooze so stopped to take a shot of that before making our way towards the church, where we saw a sign for a café - always a good place to start.

Our first port of call was the tearoom called Café Fifteen, which is also a dog-friendly café if anyone is interested, where we had a very good cup of coffee.  We decided to go for a walk and asked if we could book a table for lunch and were told that we could, which was great because it meant we didn't have to fight our way into one of the overpriced cafés on the High Street.  Having booked, off we went for a walk around the grounds of the church.

Café Fifteen is actually in the grounds of the church in the Warwick Hall, which is just across the way from the main church, so on walking out into the churchyard, we could see swathes of snowdrops, which  looked beautiful in the sunshine.  It wasn't long before I realised that there was a seat overlooking the river, so of course, I managed to persuade Mr. HCB to sit on it - and et voilà my Blip for the day - A Seat With a View in the grounds of St. John the Baptist Church, Burford.

I took several shots of the church, as you will see, and the Cotswold stone looked beautifully mellow in the morning sunshine.  We also saw several tiny daffodils in a window box outside one of the shops, definitely a sign that Spring is on the way.

As we walked along the High Street on our way back to Café Fifteen, we saw the group in the top left of my collage - and seeing a balloon that had "Happy Birthday" on it, I asked whose birthday it was, and the three whose birthday it wasn't, pointed at the lady wearing sunglasses, next to the man.  I then asked if she would like me to sing Happy Birthday to her - whereupon one of the ladies said they had already done that, but the other one said, "Go on then!"

Now  you all know that Mr. HCB is not at all like me and by this time, he had wandered off along the street - so I called him back and said we just had to sing “Happy Birthday” to this lovely lady.  I’m sure you can imagine the look on his face, but after finding out that the lady’s name was Helen, we started singing.  It’s true that once you get to my age, you don’t care what people think, and today was Helen’s day - and although we didn’t know her from Eve - it was lovely to be able to serenade her in Burford High Street and on her birthday too.

With the song over, we then started chatting to them and discovered they came from Chipping Norton, which is about 11 miles from Burford, together with their two friends were called Sue and Wendy.  Colin, Helen’s husband said that he originally came from Alton Priors, which was south of Marlborough.  I then told them that we had been there to take some shots of the church for a Blip friend, a couple of years ago, and even found the photograph on my phone of the yew tree that I had used as one of my 100 Abstracts.  Colin said he used to climb that tree when he was younger, so we then had a lovely chat about Alton Priors and the surrounding area.  

What a fantastic day - and it wasn’t over because we then walked back to Café Fifteen where we had a lovely lunch.  The waitress, Marianne, was from the Philippines and was very friendly - and on the way out, we stopped and chatted to the owner.  

I had seen the beautiful drawing on the wall when we first walked in and knew it was “The Prodigal Son” by Charlie Mackesey, who wrote “The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse” so I asked him if it was an original.  He said it wasn’t but they had had the drawing, which had been sent to therm by Charlie Mackesey, made into a canvas and they were very pleased with how it had turned out.  I then asked him about the origin of the name of the café and he said just look at the bottom of the drawing - and on there it said “Luke 15”, which is where the parable of the Prodigal Son is found in the Bible, hence the name of the café.

We have had a wonderful day and I am so pleased we decided to stop in Burford - and hope we blessed Helen and her husband and friends with our singing.  I guess it’s not often people sing “Happy Birthday” to someone in the street, especially when they are complete strangers - but as I said to them, sometimes, we have to go with our gut instinct and just do it!  I did give them all one of my cards, so that they can see the result of my photography and told them about Blip, of course!  Perhaps one day, Mr.  HCB will get used to me!  

“Since you get more joy 
     out of giving joy to others, 
          you should put a good deal of thought 
               into the happiness 
                    that you are able to give.”
Eleanor Roosevelt