Realising that I have been a bit remiss about blogging some holiday news, I thought that a quick update, along with some pictures, was in order.
Starting out on Saturday, before the previous post, we went into Cirencester for a look around. Nicky and I had no memories of it from our trip to the Cotswolds Water Park many years ago - I don't think we made it past the supermarket on the ring road that time.
Turns out that Cirencester is really rather a nice town. We enjoyed having a look around, and even found a craft fair going on. Nicky bought a silver nettle!
Sunday was our trip to Oxford - as previously reported.
Monday - John and Margaret had a day out to Bath, whilst N, J, B and I stayed around the Water Park. We went over the road to the Boathouse pub for lunch, and Barley enjoyed going for a paddle in the lake to cool down.
Then, yesterday, Nicky and I had a trip out whilst the rest of the party stayed here. We started off at Bourton on the Water, but it turned out that a few thousand others had decided to do the same thing. We stopped in at the Cotswolds Perfumery, and Nicky got some Pallas - bottled memories! We thought about getting a sandwich and sitting in the shade by the water, but it was difficult to see any spare spots on the grass, so we decided to move on.
Next stop was Stow on the Wold, which was much more pleasant, mostly because there were considerably fewer people there. We found a lovely bookshop called the
Borzoi Bookshop, and I bought a book - one from the recommendations in the cutting that Mum sent me last week!
We found a little sandwich shop called Cotswolds Baguettes, which had a very nice, chatty owner, and once stocked up with provisions, went and found a shady spot in the churchyard to enjoy our lunch (trying not to crush too many of the tiny snails that had made it their home).
On a roll of visiting Cotswolds towns we carried on to Mourton in Marsh and to Chipping Campden, but didn't stay long in either. We found a museum in Chipping Campden to visit (as advertised in the Cotswolds guide we'd taken with us front the house) but were very glad that they were waiving their £4 entry fee (due to some building work taking place) as it was a bit rubbish.
On the way home we stopped off for a drink at a farm shop / cafe, before a quick trip to the supermarket in Cirencester to stock up on the essentials of summer living - ice cream and cold drinks!