Guiting Power - more than meets the eye …

Guiting Power. Unusual name, unusual village. Despite it being a quintessentially beautiful Cotswold village, with a war memorial on a village green surrounded by gracefully aged, picturesque old dwellings made from the local honey-coloured Oolitic limestone, a scene that hasn't really changed in a few hundred years (aside from TV aerials and motor cars), people still live here. Properly live here, from Monday to Friday, not just at weekends. As a result Guiting Power is still home to two pubs, a post office (2 days per week), a kindergarden, a café and a recently opened delicatessen - not bad for a place with a population of 300 or thereabouts. And whilst visitors and tourists undoubtedly contribute to the local economy, it's a rebuke, or at least a large question-mark, to owners of holiday homes everywhere (us included), as well as to landlords.

Ownership of about 50% of the village's homes by the Guiting Manor Amenity Trust ensures they are occupied by permanent residents and not by absentee highest bidders. And the Trust is benevolent in other ways, too. Where “Private : Keep Out!” signs proliferate in many or most other places, Guiting Power is surrounded by a network of permissive paths, residents and visitors alike welcomed, encouraged even, to wander along farm tracks, beside hedgerows, through meadows and woods.

The benevolence is reflected in an active community … and in a playground containing proper old logs, the danger of the odd scrape or an occasional splinter deemed insufficient reason to install unimaginative (and expensive) plastic.

Reflected, too, in its good, old-fashioned village fête. Tea and cake, of course, skittles, coconut-shy and splat-the-rat, tug-of-war (men's, women's and children's events) with the centre-piece being the Fun Dog Show; 13 separate classes with the winner of each competing for the Best in Show award, two hours of entirely pleasurable, engaging nonsense … and the realisation that the canine population of Guiting Power may exceed the human, possibly in number and certainly in diversity.

Had there been an event for Scruffiest Hound, Pippi the Orchard Dog would have been a very strong contender; having just completed a walk along the aforementioned permissive footpaths she was caked in mud (the heavens having opened just in time for the fete) and encrusted with burrs. Given the number of well-groomed dogs in attendance, Pedigree Sporting, Prettiest Bitch or Best Veteran seemed out of reach, so she was entered into Fastest Sausage Eater and Waggiest Tail. She's a happy soul and we've often felt that her tail could be plugged into the National Grid to contribute to a sustainable net-zero future, so had high hopes for this event. And although a somewhat fussy eater, she has a noted ability to demolish at high intensity certain foods such as roast chicken, grilled fish and the like (proffered surreptitiously by our children over many years to demonstrate a healthy appetite, a clean plate and to get their parents off their backs), so much would depend on the quality of the sausages. Anyhow, at the ripe old age of 12, in her first ever competitive event, Pippi came 2nd in both classes, beaten in Waggiest Tail by a dog with no tail and in Fastest Sausage Eater by a beautiful Collie who demonstrated excellent competitive technique by swallowing without chewing … and even then it was close. Very good sausages, clearly, and a Collie with indigestion, perhaps.

Meanwhile, over at the cider stall, our Limited Edition ciders helped persuade several self-proclaimed “I don't drink cider” drinkers that cider could be more than a pint of Bulmer's, The Colonel being particularly admired by these recalcitrants, it's crisp, clean taste with a hint of honeyed elderflower proving to be more inviting than the more robust tannic complexity of Dabinett or Yarlington Mill.

Enjoy your summer, please try our cider, there's something for most people if not everyone … and thanks for reading.