Mickleton deserves more than a passing notice. Even a glimpse from the distant railway of its spire rising out of a mass of clustering orchards, backed by the verdant slopes of the Cotswold, which hereabouts are cleft with deep and darkly wooded coombes, must rouse both envy and curiosity. It is not a place where the squire and the parson seem to reign in solitary state. There are many other comfortable looking houses besides the manor and the vicarage, there are village shops, a resident doctor, and the whole has all the air of a place where a man might possess his soul and body in peace.

The huge manor House has now been divided up into four separate houses, each with its own grand entrance, the high street is peppered with lovely and substantial Cotswold Stone houses and the 20th century has increased the population of the village to around 2000, by building housing around the edges, but the end result is amazingly inviting.

It may have had something to do with the smiling welcome we got from everyone we met, it might even have been because there were signs all over the village politely and helpfully pointing the way to the things to do and see.

Whatever it was we both felt practically at home here from the moment we arrived.

There is a long established family butcher and a decent grocers, several pubs and a hotel called the Three Ways House, which is home to the Pudding club, an eccentric dining club which celebrates the great English tradition of puddings and has been running extremely successfully every Friday since the 1980s. Certainly worth checking out.