Cotswolds, Part Two

So we basically spent yesterday lazing around the cottage and taking it easy. Tamsin cooked us a fantastic breakfast and then we played Articulate and Cranium for most of the afternoon (and drank of course!). Oh, I got a birthday present as well! While in town yesterday Tamsin grabbed me a red and green solar powered plant. It is plastic and its leaves rock up and down when there is sunlight around! It is probably to make up for the fact I have killed most of her live plants here!

Today we packed up the cottage and headed over to Berkeley Castle to look around. They were filming some history documentary in part of the grounds which was pretty cool! The castle itself was interesting although you could not see much of the interior.

It turns out that the Berkeley family (it is pronounced Barkeley in case you were wondering) was quite famous and that is who the Berkshire County (pronounced Barkshire naturally) and the city of Berkeley in California are named after!

Anyway after we finished at the castle and checked out the attached butterfly enclosure (boring!) we headed over to Rose & Crown in a little village called Nympsfield for lunch. It seemed like everyone else in the area had the same idea as we could not get a seat inside. We decided to sit outside but it was too cold for Suzie so she sat in the car while we ate.

We then drove over to Woodchester Mansion. The car park was about a mile from the house itself and Suzie and Tamsin did not feel like walking down. So we left them in the car while we went to look.

The house itself was never finished. The owner ran out of money, but what he had done was pretty impressive. It was supposed to be a religious place, but he ended up going broke....

The tour took ages, so it took us a while to get back to the car. I don't think Suzie and Tamsin were too impressed!

In the end though I think we all had a great time. It was a fantastic break and was nice to have the others around!


The documentary being filmed.


Castle protection (they made sure we paid to get in!)


The castle


More of the castle.


Woodchester Mansion


The grounds around the mansion.