Sunday 5 June 1994. After a weekend in the Cotswolds, we are now on our way home, having decided to take it at a slow pace and stop at places that take our fancy.
This is the two Slaughters, Upper Slaughter on the far side of the river and Lower Slaughter on the side from where the photograph was taken. Whether there actually was some ancient battle and uncountable mayhem on this site is debateable and history hasn't set it down in writing but verbal tradition persists that Mavis at 23 Riverside in Lower Slaughter came over all ferocious when Betty at 42 Foxglove Close in Upper Slaughter borrowed a cup of sugar once without returning the cup.
For days the river banks were lined with furious women dressed in battle pinnies and brandishing egg whisks and toasting forks before a skirmish broke out in the middle of the southernmost bridge.
People whisper that the bridge was held with single-handed determination by Elsie Winterthrop who swung her skillet with wild abandon until a pair of white knee-length knickers were flown from the roof of Mayoress Beatrice Bagthorpe's. Ever since that fateful day, when the river turned colour because Rose Daley had a dolly blue washing stick in the pocket of her pinny when she was knocked into the river by Elsie's skillet, the village kids have re-enacted the battle, every mid-summer, skimming stones at one another up and down the river whilst wearing a saucepan on their heads.
And whilst all of that may well be a load of rubbish (though if you get skilleted, don't say I didn't warn you) it has made this entry a little longer and allowed me to show more photos!
The water mill in Upper Slaughter has a water wheel, gently turning and seemingly perpetually in shadow - I have never been when the sun was shining from a direction to light up the wheel and bring it out of shadow. If you can't make it out in the photo, you'll just have to take my word for it - there is a water wheel there.
So that's filled a short period of time whilst we walked down one path, across a bridge and back along the other side of the river, taking time to go into the mill shop and back swiftly out again when I realised how small it was and I had a camera bag over my shoulder which might have done as much damage as Elsie's skillet...
I did also have a spot of doodling with the pencil!
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