Cotswolds Country

Had a day in the country visiting a myriad of small picturesque villages. Some like Bourton-on-the -Water are over run with tourists and the associated problems that brings - paying for the loos, paid parking, poor customer service and glazed eyed locals. They are even discussing artificial grass because the tourists trash it so badly. We are lucky it is early spring and still beautiful and relatively quiet, the terrier in the window watching the world go by is a classic, but it is still too touristy for our liking.

Then it's on to Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter. Lovely tiny villages with stone cottages, streams with rainbow trout, old mills and tiny shops and welcoming and knowledgeable service. Small churches and cottages and manors all built with brilliant stonework. The sun peaks out and they look a picture. Ross is impressed by the phone booths, one in each village with a defibrillator inside. A comment on the age of the locals or the visitors?

Ross favourite house in Upper Slaughter fronted by a stream

The Manor - Lower Slaughter

Toni's favourite and Ross covering up the no parking sign

Toni ready for a heart attack so |Ross can check out the defibrillator

Mill Cottage Lower Slaughter

Stow on the Wold for lunch, great baguettes to eat in the local park. Very picturesque, oldest tavern in England 947AD and window boxes full of early flowers.

We headed cross country on narrow lanes, one car wide with very few passing areas, lambs gamboling in green, green paddocks overlooking spectacular scenery. It's a bit hazy today - get this - because the warm southerly winds are bringing sand and dirt from the Sahara. The lambs don't seem to mind.

Lastly we land in Chipping Campden, a coffee, a walk and a peek in a few delicatessens, cheese shops to look at "Stinking Bishop Cheese" a local delicacy, and again to appreciate the stonework. Neighbouring Broad Campden has the thatched cottages you see in the travel shows but the road is so narrow we can't risk stopping for pictures. But we will be back again I hope to explore more.

Beautiful Magnolia in front of an old building in Chipping Campden