Our journey had to go through the beautiful Cotswolds :-).
It was foreseen to leave Friday morning with the dog, pay a visit to dear Niki at Nostalgia in Shepton Mallet and to call in in Bath for to get colour samples and to visit Gardenalia where I bought last year that wonderful second hand 'automatic' spate. (Note from EG - the one who calls a spade a spade.... - apologies for the spelling mistake)'Automatic' because the spade has captured so much knowledge during his life, that I don't need any effort anymore to dig holes with this wonderful, sound tool.
And EG wanted to visit the grave of Colonol John Rouse Merriott Chard, who was officer in the Zulu War at Rorke's Drift. The village is called Hatch Beauchamp and was supposed to be "not far" from Shepton Mallet. Unexpected heavy traffic on the M25 forced us to make slight changes to our initial plan as nearly all shops on our road where closed by the time we arrived and we headed then to Bristol where the chocolate dog was to stay in son's flat.
Finding Hatch Beauchamp was one thing but there was no sign post for the church or graveyard and it took us a while to find it. Eventually, we got there after having asked local people.
A small church and an old, silent graveyard - that is the last resting place for EG's hero.
Inside the church was this funny paper posted and I'd like to share it, it explains the 'hierarchy of biscuits'.
After a very slow drive back North, we had to stop for some Fish & Chips, a must when we begin our journeys in the UK.
We then discovered the lovely capital of the Cotswolds, Cirencester.
Cirencester is definetely to be visited again as shops started to close when we arrived. We had still a way to go to Great Rissington where I had booked for the overnight stay.
When reaching what seemed to be one end of the town, there was this enormous yew hedge to be admired!
We had to study the window with houses for sale as we are still searching for our dream destination in the UK. Cirencester is now top-listed together with Ludlow :-).
This house in the Cotswolds, however, is not for sale but would match our ideal exactly.
I will never get tired of these warm colours the Cotswold offer.
We arrived in due time at this lovely place: the Lambs Inn. It was very busy due to an air show on Sunday but our four poster bed was in Millies garden room, behind and it was very quiet, pleasant and comfortable.
Sunday morning, after a lovely full English cooked breakfast, we drove to Uncle John's and his wife and had a nice moment staying in their old cosy cottage. We found out, that Uncle John is an artist! This is one of his pictures - everybody busy on the streets but with mobile phones on their ears.
We went back to Bristol to get the dog back on board and then cruised along to Dover to catch the ferry. Again, almost 2 hours extra time was used up in traffic jams. Late at night, we were back at home, save and happy.
Above is a selection of my shopping treasures from Niki and Bath and the colour samples.
The garden at home was wet and it had been cold and nearly no work for the neighbour's who looked after horses, cats and garden.
Whilst it is so handy to live not too far from the UK, it still is each time a struggle to get from here to there. But all those lovely moments spent even for short trips are big highlights as driving by car allows so much freedom and the dog can come with us and we can do a lot of good to the British economy ;-).
A plus tard...
