Bedfordshire

 

A fair isn't a fair without fairy floss ...

Nail-painting stand - a variation on the usual face-painting ...



Uncle Bill shows the kids how it's done ...

Old Warden fair

With Auntie Ruth, Uncle Bill and Crazy Maisy

Edie:
It was so much fun staying with Ruth and Bill. (And of course Crazy Maisy!) We went to a really cool fair, (though it only had one ride which was a bit babyish it was still really cool) and we bought some candyfloss. (I started gobbling it up straight away but Della took really long which is why in the picture she isn't even eating it!) I got my nails painted violet with little pink and white daisies on them. Ruth and Bill live on a farm so there were heaps of horses, dogs, and cats. Me and Heather, (Ruth and Bill's daughter-in-law and the lady who looks after the horses) gave the foals their medicine and when we were heading out of the paddock they followed us right to the gate! My favourite foal was called Millie. Back at the fair I won a bow and arrow. It was really cool! But it was made of plastic and didn't shoot that far. Maisy is a long-haired Jack Russell. She is VERY cheeky. And when you take her to her pen and go back inside, she starts whimpering because she wants to play with you!

Della:
It was sooooooo fun staying with Ruth, Bill, Heather, and Nigel (and the dogs, horses and cats). The fair was awesome! But the same as Edie - I thought the only ride was a bit babyish. I didn't really like the fairy floss, though. It tasted like wool mixed up with sugar. The photo of us was hard to take with Crazy Maisy looking at the camera. Eventually she looked at the camera but Dad didn't have enough time to snap a photo. It was fun living on a farm.

Jen:
I finished off Della's fairy floss! Brought back memories of the Royal Adelaide Show. Was quite happy that the only ride at the Old Warden Fair was 'babyish' given recent events at the Adelaide show. And it didn't stop the girls having a go!
The fair was just lovely. I think my favourite bit was the Pimms tent :-) We were lucky to be in town for this typical English summer fair.
It was so lovely to catch up with Ruth (Matthew's mum Val's sister) and Bill again. They and Nigel and Heather were so good to us. The girls really loved being around so many animals and being spoilt. And it was amazing staying in a house with parts dating back to (from memory) the 16th Century.
Wish we could have stayed longer with the Lewises. But France was beckoning ...

Matt:
Yes, it was great to spend time with Ruth and Bill and the wider clan (Heather and Nigel, Lin and Liz, Nicola, Luke and Jemima). Many thanks to all for their time and hospitality. Also special to enjoy such a quintessential English experience as the Old Warden village fête. Sorry for beating you at skittles, Bill.... Lovely countryside, lovely people; much fun had.


NEXT: Vernet les Bains

Cotswolds 2

Taking the steam train from Toddington to Cheltenham on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway - with cousin Sally

 

Sudeley Castle - the ruined banqueting hall

 

Katherine Parr's tomb

Lady Edie and Lady Della

 

The royal loo

Snowshill

 

With Paul and Gill

Broadway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cotswolds

Church at Ashton-under-Hill

Watching/hearing bell-ringing in tower of church

Climbing over a stile on Bredon Hill, above our village

Ashton-under-Hill is home to picture-perfect thatched cottages

The beautiful converted barn we stayed in

Pub across the road!

Chez nous (for four nights)

Jen and Matt:
After our cramped quarters on the canals our spacious converted 17th Century barn at Ashton-under-Hill was bliss. Thanks to cousin Sally and Geoff for this luxurious treat! A-u-H was a three minute drive to Sally and Geoff in Beckford, where they run a general store and post office. Almost every village in this area of Worcestershire is just gorgeous. We enjoyed wandering the local hills and village lanes, listening to Geoff and friends ringing bells in the 1000-year-old St Barbara's church at A-u-H, visiting the Beckford nature reserve, and eating several delicious pub and restaurant meals plus a home-cooked feast in Sally and Geoff's lovely house. Sally took a precious day off work to accompany us on a fantastic steam train ride from Toddington to Cheltenham and back. We loved Sudeley Castle and Gardens, home at different times to Richard the Third ("oh no, its Richard the Third") and Henry VIII's widow Katherine Parr. Katherine Parr is entombed in a chapel on the grounds - the only English queen to be buried on private land - and Della was fascinated by a rather bizarre wax representation of the queen lying in state ... she was also pretty impressed with the queen's fancy loo ...
We also spent a wonderful day with cousin Paul and Gill, who - with their family - run an apple orchard nearby. We were privileged to share Paul and Gill's 55th wedding anniversary with them (gate-crashing Aussies...), including a delicious pub lunch at Snowshill - (another) beautiful Cotswolds village where parts of Bridget Jones's diary were filmed. A post-lunch visit to Snowshill Manor was a delightful way to spend a couple of hours. The lovely old home was filled with an eclectic mix of treasures collected by Charles Wade. The girls loved lunch, the manor and spending time with Paul and Gill but I think the highlight of the day for them was meeting Archie, a long-haired Jack Russell pup. Mind you, they also loved Sally and Geoff's dogs Ellie and Molly.
Once again we were so lucky to have met with such wonderful hospitality and generosity that really added to our enjoyment of another fantastic chapter of our Big Trip - thanks Sally and Geoff, Paul and Gill.
And we'd highly recommend the Old Post House and Barn at Ashton Under Hill - beautiful accommodation with lovely hosts: http://www.the-old-post-house.co.uk/Welcome.html

Della:
It was really fun staying near Sally and Geoff (and of course Molly and Ellie).
My favourite part was going to the bell tower, and spending time with our relatives. But, just as Mum said, meeting the dogs was a highlight - that is, Ellie, Molly and Archie. Also Bella, who belonged to the lady who owned the barn we stayed in.
Sudeley Castle was very very very very very awesome but when I thought about it history was a bit scary. When I go into a castle I feel very interested in what happened there, and I want to learn more. It was a bit creepy in the chapel when I saw Katherine Parr's tomb. They had a pretend Katherine Parr laying there - she looked very real - and I kept on thinking that she was breathing. They had an adventure playground at the castle. The main thing about the adventure playground was the shape - it was the shape ooooooooof ... a castle! AND there were tunnels and a flying fooooooox!
The steam train was very big and long. We got to go in the part where they drive the train.
Snowshill Manor was fun. I thought the manor house was quite different and funny. Also weird. The kitchen in the little building where Charles Wade and his wife lived was quite messy and had pots and pans and things tied to the roof. His bedroom was very fancy but I would not like to sleep there.

Edie:
I liked staying in the Cotswolds. I really liked the barn. If I could buy it I would. We met Sally and Geoff (well, we met Sally when I was little but Della wasn't born then) and their dogs, Ellie and Molly. We caught up with Paul and Gill and their puppy, Archie. He was very cute and he was so tiny! At Sudeley Castle, one of my highlights was the adventure playground, and Kathy's tomb. (Although it was a bit creepy as Della said and I was sure that the fake Katherine's hand moved! Maybe she wasn't so fake!) We had a great time exploring all the little towns. It was really cool on the old steam trains. It felt like I was Anne from Famous Five catching the train with her brothers to visit George and her parents or something like that! We saw heaps of green sheep! I don't know why they were green and they looked very odd!

English canals

It could sometimes be tricky to find a spot to 'park' the canal boat!



A drink with Dad by a lock, while Mum did the grocery shopping ...



In a lock

In a spin at the playground at Westport Lake



Throwing a pot at the Wedgwood Pottery



One of the lovely pubs we stopped off at

Waiting to enter the lock

Mum and Edie get ready to open the gates and let our canal boat out of the lock




   

Edie and Matthew were great skippers

Della:
The canal boat trip was awesome! It's probably the main part of our big trip. The locks were one of my favourite things on the canal boat trip because you got to push the gates to let the boat in and out of the lock. It was a weird feeling on the boat - you rocked back and forward. Sleeping on the boat was hard for me because there was a hole in the roof near my bed and me and Celia (my doll) got wet. And also it just wasn't that comfortable. There were lots of animals and birds in and around the canal. Like swans and ducks, moorhens, coots, cows, horses, sheep and otters (although you usually don't see them - but we saw one). Another highlight was my lovely Auntie Becky. She had a sleepover with us and she was soooooo much fun.

Edie:
I loved staying on the canal boats. As you can see from the last photo, me and dad took turns steering the boat. I had had a bit of practice because I had been sailing with my cousin before, but it was still pretty hard. And very fun! We always tried to get to pubs for dinner but sometimes we couldn't moor( park ) close enough. Every time we got to a pub I always had sausage, chips, and peas! I don't know why! We took it in turns helping mum with the locks. Except for one day when mum and dad did fifteen locks in the pouring rain.( I was sleeping in!) One weekend Aunty Becky had a sleepover with us. We went to Wedgwood pottery factory and threw a pot ( made one ) and painted one each ( which we will bring home with us somehow ) which was great fun. Me and Della had our own cabin.

Jen:
We had a great two weeks on the canals in the north of England. We did the 'four counties ring', which took us along the Shropshire Union, Trent and Mersey and Staffordshire and Worcestershire canals through the counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and the West Midlands. We travelled around 110 miles and took our boat - Dentdale - up/down 96 locks.
Dentdale was 62 foot long and quite comfy inside - as long as you don't need too much room! We had a double and two single beds, and the dining table converted to a double bed for when Becky had a sleepover. A little kitchen, loo, shower, and even two armchairs and a telly/DVD player (which we only used to introduce the girls to Swallows and Amazons).
Life was slow-paced. The boats can go a maximum four miles an hour. We tended to have a leisurely start to the day and how much ground/water we covered depended mainly on how many locks we had to tackle. On one memorable morning we went down 15 locks in the pouring rain - it took us three hours, and the pub lunch that followed was well-deserved.
Our favourite overnight mooring spots were in the middle of the countryside, away from roads, next to a field with only cows as neighbours. A 'park' near a centuries-old canal-side pub serving local ales and hearty meals was also pretty good.
We did a little exploring on land - when Becky joined us we went to the Wedgwood Pottery. We dropped into Market Drayton to do some laundry and Nantwich for a doctor's appointment. But most of our daylight hours were spent tootling along the waterways, admiring the beautiful English countryside and the wildlife - including swans, ducks, moorhens, coots, little blue and brown kingfishers, swallows, rabbits, and a single otter!

Matt:
This was indeed a wonderful two weeks; a blur of green and pleasant English countryside, great pubs (and greater ales), of countless locks and the challenge of manoeuvring a 62 foot monster along a narrow canal. These boats may be slow, but they don't turn on a dime, as the Yanks would say; nor do they stop very easily. Somehow we avoided any nasty dings and the girls did a sterling job with the locks and, in Edie's case, as stand-in skipper.
It brought back many happy memories of canal trips of the past, most recently a little over a decade ago with Jen's folks, and more distantly of childhood adventures on the narrow boats.
Our decision to spend two weeks completing the circuit, rather than one as many prefer, proved an excellent one, allowing sleep-ins, pub visits and the kind of gentle pace that befits the canals.
And no one fell in!

English canals 2

In our canal boat - the dining area and kitchen

Feeding the ducks and swans was a favourite past time

Going down ...

Captain Matthew

Pretty house by a lock



Leaving a lock

Aperitif after a day of boating

Snug as a bug

The Denholms with 'Dentdale'