To the countryside we go

White Hart Royal Hotel - Moreton-in-Marsh

We left London Friday morning and headed for Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds, an hour and a half train ride out to the country. The White Hart Royal hotel where we are staying is an ancient carriage house and full of beautiful antiques. Our room is lovely - double the size of the one we had in London and it even has a bath! What a sight that was to behold.  Ira had black pudding with his traditional English breakfast - thank goodness I asked what it was before I ordered it - it's pig's blood and oatmeal - ugh!

The village is very quaint with beautiful old buildings - exactly what we imagined it to be. There are fabulous public footpaths throughout the area. We took one over to Batsford - about 3 miles away - and went to the arboretum there and looked at the trees. We met a lovely English couple on the walk back and she filled me in on the life of people in the UK while the gentleman filled Ira in on fishing and all of those important things that men so like to talk about :) That's been one of the most memorable things of our trip so far, talking to the locals. We've met quite a few Canadians already. There's an obnoxious American staying below us - you just can't escape them! When we tell people we are from Canada, they either ask about the snow or comment on how beautiful it is and how lucky we are to live there. We agree with them wholeheartedly.

Lower Slaughter

Batsford

Today, Saturday, we took the bus down to Bourton-on-the-Water, which is said to be the Venice of England. It was very nice. There are lots of footpaths there so we set off to Lower Slaughter and Upper Slaughter and saw lots of the countryside. We usually buy sandwiches to take with us and picnic in the fields. We walked through sheep fields and barley fields, alongside beautiful manor houses.We stopped in Lower Slaughter at the community hall and had tea and cake in honour of the war heroes who have lost limbs and been injured in the Afghanistan war. It's nice to see the communities pulling together like that.

 It's been very, very dry here in England since March and the farmers are beginning to worry about their crops. We meant to hire bikes today and ride them up to Chipping Camden (a 6-hour return ride) but they advised that we might have thundershowers so suggested we do that tomorrow instead. The buses don't run on Sundays so it makes more sense to do it that way.

We had some fabulous Bangladeshi food last night and will be having Thai food tonight. The people around the village are lovely. So far everyone in England that we've talked to has been very nice. People are very polite and always say "hello". Nice to see human beings being nice to each other.

Monday morning we're off to Avignon, France - a day on the train, which will be the first day that we haven't walked for miles. I guess our legs could use the rest.

Can't say I miss home yet. Give me another week .....