Yes, same!

Bagged my first ‘shirtless man in a supermarket’ of the season today. I swear it comes around sooner with every passing year.

Exterior of St Mary the Virgin, a corrugated metal structure painted black with green edging sat in a fenced enclosure in a field on a bright sunny day.

Interior of St Mary the Virgin, a small wooden-panelled room with wooden pews, a wooden lectern, altar, and a keyboard with a cover over it.

The altar of St Mary the Virgin with plain window behind. The altar has a crucifix, two candles, and two small arrangements of spring flowers on it.

Two vases full of brightly coloured spring flowers on a wooden pew.

I was ill most of the Easter weekend but well enough yesterday to treat myself to a visit to one of my favourite places, the tin church of St Mary the Virgin at Shepperdine. What a joy to spend time here and what a wrench to leave this tranquil place and return to a noisy world.

Take Your Seats - YouTube premiere We're once again inviting you to Take Your Seats for world-class theatre courtesy of National Theatre at Home, completely free on YouTube. Stream The Importance of Being Earnest Live on Thursday 12th ...

You asked, we listened 🤭

Take Your Seats for our free YouTube premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest on 12 March at 7pm.

Accessible worldwide, with British Sign Language, Audio Description and Closed Caption versions available.

Find out more here 👇
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/take-your-se...

Solidarity with Prospect members at London Museum who are out on strike today in a dispute over pay ✊

Fantastic turnout and support for Prospect's industrial action on pay that started today across London Museum locations. Loved seeing the placards,badges, costumes and masks and incredible energy.

Proud to have kicked off the speeches, plus chants and old dockers songs!

Belated #WallsOnWednesday 🧱

I adore the walls of this church 😍

📍St Michael's Church • Myddfai ⛪️

#Wales #History

A marmalade cat with a purple neckerchief reading “Do Not Feed” looking through the door of a tea room.

Somehow I don’t think this is going to end well…

Paved area outside a building with glass-walled ground floor and brick first floor. A small bright green box has “caution, live bees” written on the side.

CAUTION // LIVE BEES

Programme for Alice in Pantoland held up in front of a room full of people and a stage

It’s the opening night of our town panto (“oh no it’s not”, etc.)

Sign reading “please take nappies home”

Don’t need any, but ok!

You’re welcome!

Close up of red berries in a roadside hedge

Fields in the background with trees and hedgerows silhouetted in the foreground

Berkeley Pill with trees and bushes to one side and a field with a single tree to the other

View of the west door and window of St Mary’s Church with the church tower, separate, in the background

Berries, winter sunshine, Berkeley Pill, and a different view of St Mary’s courtesy of today’s lunchtime walk.

Many congratulations to you both!

Almost tripped over a crouching Tom Baker in Boots.

Circular paving stone in Chipping Campden with inscription marking the start of the Cotswold Way

I’m at the start of the Cotswold Way and the start of my journey along it raising money to support refugees and asylum seekers in Gloucestershire. Find out more about what I’m doing and please consider sponsoring me here: www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/cotswo...

The proscenium arch, boxes and ceiling of the Everyman Theatre.

At Frank Matcham’s @everymanchelt.bsky.social tonight. I’m sure I’ve said it before but isn’t it just glorious?

The tower and spire of Painswick church with the moon behind it. Shadowy yew trees line the path.

Painswick churchyard by moonlight.

'A plague o' both your houses': Life and Death in 17th-Century England Explore the role plague and disease played in seventeenth-century England. From the lived experience of diarists, plague searchers, victims and medics to its expression in works of literature by Shake...

If early modern disease is more your thing, I’m also running this course too.

'A plague o' both your houses': Life and Death in 17th-Century England

Applications open lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/a-pl...

Row of shop fronts with Berkeley Pharmacy in the centre. An old pub sign is hanging on the building.

I was really ill with flu over Christmas last year, so I’m not taking any chances this year! With my history of medicine hat on, it’s just amazing to get a flu vaccine a little over 100 meters and 200 years from where Edward Jenner was providing vaccination against smallpox.

Really enjoyed it Jo, thanks. Sorry to miss you too, kind of got swept up in the crowd heading towards the door!

A stage with ornate plasterwork surrounding it. Cirencester History Festival is projected on a screen in the centre.

In the grand surroundings of Cirencester’s Bingham Hall for a special @cirenhistoryfest.bsky.social screening of Daisy May and Charlie Cooper’s NightWatch followed by Q&A with @joannadurrant.bsky.social.

A stone building with a rendered front.

Finally The Mariners Arms, which closed in 2016 and is now a supermarket. Now I’m not 100% sure about this one, but I seem to remember that when it was a pub people would report their pint glasses moving about the tables of their own accord. Something to bear in mind when you’re doing your shopping.

The front of the Berkeley Arms, a brick inn with the Berkeley coat of arms in a prominent position above the entrance.

A friend tells a story about an unusual encounter at the Berkeley Arms. He was in an upstairs room when one of the sash windows flew open. He went to close it but it was difficult, like it hadn’t been touched in a while. Then he noticed on the wall a photo of a woman leaning out of the same window.

The Old White Hart, a former pub built of brick with a large entrance passage.

The White Hart dates back to the 1600s and ceased trading in 1969. It’s now home to a number of independent businesses and a spooky figure: a man in top hat and tails.

The Chantry, a Queen Anne style house with white rendered walls and a blue front door, seen through bushes.

Then on to The Chantry. When it opened as a museum the first floor was used as guest accommodation. One visitor was kept awake all night by a ghostly dog scratching at his door. A later visitor recalled feeling a dog brush past him on the stairs but when he looked there was nothing there.

The tower of Berkeley church to one side with a path leading down through trees.

… This path, taken by people from neighbouring communities when they came to Berkeley to bury their dead, leads to an area known by older locals as “the weirdly”. It’s here on a stormy night you can hear the cries of the witch. Hooded figures in robes have also been glimpsed by the church tower.

Berkeley church with gravestones and table tombs around it.

In the churchyard is the tomb of Dicky Pearce, the last court jester (who also died at Berkeley Castle). You’re sure to hear him laugh again if you run around his grave three times. There’s also a tomb with marks left by the Devil when one night he came to claim the Witch of Berkeley for his own…

Berkeley Castle against cloudy skies.

In a token nod to Halloween I took a quick lunchtime stroll around some of the spookier parts of Berkeley. First stop, Berkeley Castle where Edward II was (possibly, but maybe not) murdered. It’s said that you can hear his screams echoing around the town every year on the anniversary of his death.