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We are GWSR members and get one free ride on the steam trains from Toddington to Cheltenham per year.  

We took it on a lovely day in mid-September, a really glorious blue, green, and mellow-golden day.  The track goes through some of the most beautiful railside scenery in the country (so the leaflet says!) and it really is stunning, winding down Cleeve Hill through various villages until it reaches the famous Gold-Cup racecourse in Cheltenham.

Here's our locomotive, puffing into the station:





I think this is Nottingham Hill, one of a number of smallish hills that pop up here and there round Toddington, Stanway, Winchcombe and Greet.





I wonder if butterflies are tempted by that purple stuff beside the track





This tractor in the field reminded me of my much-loved Webshots' Farms and Barns wallpaper









When we returned to Toddington Station we found a bridal party had been on board in the Pullman carriages, enjoying champagne and smoked salmon canapes.  The bride and her father left in this carriage drawn by a rather delightful horse.




What a lovely way to spend an hour or two - and it didn't cost us a penny- save for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake from the train's little buffet car!

I wonder if butterflies are tempted by that purple stuff beside the track

That's probably rosebay willowherb. Butterflies don't seem to like it much as a nectar source but elephant hawk moth caterpillars eat it, and the moths are stunning.
Unfortunately I can't produce a picture of one but I know a person who can:
http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=60
Nice picture set Merry.  :thumbs

Lovely scenary you have there, Merry!  :thumbs

And an interesting moth, Eccles. I tend to think of moths as being very plain.

Love the thread title merry, takes me back many a day to happy school days :)

From a Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away on the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson.


Super photos too, bet the steam train journey was a delight from beginning to end :)

Glad you posted that, Babs. It rang a bell, but I couldn't place where I'd heard it before.  :thumbs
Wow, mega exciting. Great pictures.

And there's a hillfort at Nottingham Hill, right? With a mysterious grove of holey trees, famous amongst a select group of weird folk who delight in taking note of such matters. Have the local scholars sorted out the significance of those holes yet?

What a terrific neighborhood you've got. And the idea of clackity clacking past it on an antique train, recalling Stevenson whilst eating cakes is just perfect.




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