Cotswolds

For the Bank holiday weekend, I picked Clare up in Richmond on Friday and we went to meet Matt and El in the Cotswolds at the same cottage as last time. This time we left earlier and got there at roughly the same time as Matt and El, in time for food and a movie. We were all complete rock stars over the weekend and in bed by 10pm latest (often earlier). Getting old.  

The goose shed - our cottage

The cottage is lovely and very cosy. Though on Saturday morning, I stepped on a very large beetle in our living room. I didn't realise what is was until I flicked it off, still alive and it started crawling over the floor. Yes, there was some screaming involved in this.

The weather was hit and miss most of the weekend. On Saturday we went for breakfast and passed a farm shop on the way back. It has some lovely things including some nice English wines and ciders which we enjoyed over the weekend. And also Chuckleberry jam. It sounds fake but it's amazing! We are all addicted. Initially I brought some to try (given the name, how could I not?) but after we tried it, we had to got back so we could all get some. It's a cross between a recurrent, blackcurrent and a gooseberry. And delicious!

It's real.

On the afternoon we had a walk up the lane and around the fields to the bluebell wood, disturbing  a few sheep on the way.

Hello?

Lambs!

Bluebells.

Clare and Matt strolling ahead.

The bluebell field was very lovely, a thick carpet. 

We carried on walking for a bit along the rapeseed field. The weather doesn't look great but it was dry and reasonably warm.

El, Matt and Clare

We turn back at the yellow brick road. Seriously, that's its name! 

Yellow brick road.

Given that no one really uses the red phone boxes before, Grafton village have put it to another use: a library.

Given the lovely weather (and because I hadn't been to a BBQ in years), we did a BBQ on the evening. We had some slight issues as I remembered everything except matches. We are rubbish at starting fires. We tired the cigarette lighter in my car and then the grill. We got it to smoke a lot but no fire (proving where there is smoke, there doesn't have to be fire!). Clare and El gave up and went to buy matches in the end. I thought Matt and I were getting close to success. :)

Finally. Fire!

BBQ

We even remembered to buy marshmallows to roast over for desert, which is becoming a tradition. Plus it was much warmer sitting by the BBQ. We huddled back inside soon after for another movie.

Toasting marshmallows.

On Sunday we went to Cheltenham. I think we missed the nice part. We ended up walking along your average high street. We did get a nice lunch at TGIF. But we got bored of shopping and went back for more movies, and sandwiches for tea.
And Monday, the weather was not great again, so we went to the cinema and had lunch before we all had to head back. The trip back to London wasn't too bad, though my GPS has decided to start giving me directions in relation to pub locations. That is a new one.