Saturday 9 October - Ledbury to Salisbury

Ledbury is abuzz when I go out to wander round. It’s the first place I’ve been to where there are foreign tourists – all good for the economy. It’s a pretty main street with lots of half-timbered buildings (and the usual housing estates and ring road behind). There are lots of shops selling pretty things aimed at tourists and some for the locals as well. There is a market and lots of apples – this is good orchard country – and I stock up on lots of different varieties of local apples. It all seems rather lovely and idyllic and I wonder why these towns seem to be able to deal with change when others have been decimated.

This part of the world was part of the first industrial revolution – the world of sheep and wool. So I guess it’s had time to adapt and scale down to fit the times. Perhaps the old 19th century cities will eventually find their right size and the challenge is to work out what to get rid of rather than trying to conserve things. There seemed to be a lot of knocking down going on in Stoke-on-Trent.

I drive through Malvern but still struggle to find somewhere to stop. Here it all looks very Edwardian; large houses along the hill line looking out across the plains. Elgar’s music seems to hang in the air (and the business part is called the ‘Enigma Business Park’. Then I zigzag my way from the Malverns to the Cotswolds. It’s rich countryside and there are orchards and many, many polytunnels – so while the British economy has transformed itself, in these parts there is still plenty of farming.

And as I get into the Cotswolds, there are increasing numbers of tourists. There are coachloads of Japanese and Europeans as well as British tourists. It’s difficult to find anywhere to park. The steep single street old town centres were not built to deal with large numbers of tourists. There are still sheep in the fields but although prices are better than they were, most farmers need more than one job to keep going. It used to be said that a farm will keep a family, now they say it takes a family to keep a farm. Judging by the farmers’ markets, bags of hay for pet bedding (which sell at vastly higher prices that bales of hay) there are plenty of people living in a multi-job world.

I stop in Bourton-on-the-Water for lunch and petrol and find neither. The density of tourists increases here. Long ago I went to school here and it’s not massively changed. It was a tourist spot even then and somewhere I have photos taken at the model village. But the quest for petrol is becoming more urgent. It is one of the ironies of our reliance on cars that there are fewer petrol stations. There are now petrol stations only on main roads and at supermarkets but you can go for miles in the countryside without finding a petrol station. I drive on backroads if at all possible and by the time I get to Burford the needle is getting alarming low – but I find no petrol – I drive cautiously to Lechlade but still no petrol. By this time I need local advice – Farringdon (7 miles) or Fairford (3 miles), so Fairford it is. With the confidence of a full tank of petrol I'm heading to Salisbury and an enthusiastic welcome from the dog.