Counting Sheep

I slept hard for a few hours then woke up at 2 AM and didn't go back to sleep until 4.  When I woke up again at 8 I came down and did the dishes we left in the sink yesterday and then made tea and toast with the bread Felicity had made.  We bought some bananas yesterday and cheese at the shop on the hill that said it was "very mature cheddar".  Being mature myself and Kay saying she liked sharp cheese we decided to buy it so I cut a couple slices for breakfast.  Yikes...mature was way over anything we would eat so that was not eaten.  Kay was not up yet so I went to get her up and we enjoyed breakfast looking out the glass doors into our garden.  It is another beautiful day so we get showered, dressed and ready to go.

Kay wanted to go to Tesco which is a store more like Target than Walmart.  By the time we got in the car it was afternoon so we were going to drive around some villages nearby and find a place to have some lunch and we would buy groceries at Tesco as well as a Sim card Kay wanted for her phone.  We went in a different direction than we had been previously.  The scenery here is like something out of a magazine and hard to describe the beauty that the camera just can't capture.  Rolling hills, farms, sheep everywhere with lots of baby lambs, beautiful flowers blooming and gorgeous old homes.  Everything is so manicured and well kept.  We get to the village of Mickelson and one of the places Felicity had mentioned for us to eat was called the Three Way House Hotel which was in an intersection where three roads came together. We were going to stop but there was no parking spots open around there (parking here is a huge issue).  We went on down the street and found a "beer garden" that served food.  The clue was there was plenty of parking.  Actually this was probably just a neighborhood bar as it was full of men just having an afternoon beer and was a bit on the dingy side.  We decided not to stay and went back to the first place and found a place to park.  It was a beautiful place and the food was awesome, the atmosphere very classy and elegant and we enjoyed it immensely.  I'm sure Kay will go into detail about the "Pudding Club" but I have figured in a short time that they consider desert pudding whether it is pudding as we know it or not.  We had a lentil and potato soup that was wonderful, homemade bread (everyone does it here), roast beef with roasted vegetables and Yorkshire Pudding (which is not a pudding but a pastry of sorts with no flavor) and then a desert bar which consisted of many things I didn't recognize but I got the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce and it was quite good.  We then went to the "lounge" to have tea and chocolates.  It really was nice and we enjoyed it but by now it was after 3 and Tesco closes at 4:30.  It was in a city called Evesham which we expected to be small but was the biggest city we have been in since we picked up the car in Oxford.  Kay did good until we made the turn into the Tesco parking lot and she was on the wrong side of the divider and there were hand gestures and much yelling behind closed car windows.  We managed to park and by the time she got the Sim card the store was closing.  We ran and picked up a couple things that we could heat for dinner before they threw is out. 

It took us about 45 minutes to get back to the cottage.  We went out for a walk and it started to rain.  By the time we were through with lunch the sun wasn't out any longer and it had gotten colder and breezy.  There are "Foot Paths" through the entire Cotswolds and you "could" walk from one village to another.  We walked down the road and took pictures of the field of daffodils by the church and saw a turkey and a goose in there too. While driving this afternoon we saw a pheasant that was beautiful.  Lots of wild life around here.  We walked the circle path behind the cottage to the church and lots of villagers were out walking their dogs and were very friendly and chatty.  Behind the church is the farm with the lambs and there were so many babies.  They were very vocal too so I got a video as well but they don't post well on here.  We took so many pictures back there and would have stayed longer but it was raining harder so we started home. 

I wrote the blog for the last two days but need to get the pictures together first then I will post it.  We had dinner and Kay is looking into what we will do tomorrow and I'm going to work on posting the blogs and photos then day 2 will be in the books as well.