The weekend we are away with Helen’s cousins for what they describe as a cousins weekend. The venue was to be Winchcombe, a small town in the north west of the Cotswold. I picked Helen up from work at about 17:20 and we headed out following the sat nav in the new Golf MK 7, delivered only on Tuesday if this week. The car is the 2.0 GT Diesel, and is full of gizmos in the standard spec. For a gadget man like me it is great : auto head lights which come on when it is dark and switch of main beam when another car approaches, cruise control that adjusts the speed to keep you from getting too close to the car in front, sat nav, reversing front and back beepers. The journey was in the dark, so although we could not see the scenery as the sat nav took us on the scenic route we were able to test out all the features.
We got to the hut just before 19:00 and dinner was soon prepared by N a lovely vegetarian chilli with rice, followed by a choice of cakes. The cottage is well equipped most rooms have en suites and downs stairs there is plenty of room to lounge about. All for £80 per person for the whole weekend. The owners are really friendly and keen to please, A had mentioned that a TV was not working and the guy came round offering to get a TV engineer out the next day, we said it was not a problem there were more than one TV working, including the one in the lounge, and we had 4 iPads with us, and the broadband was pretty fast, at 17mb.
Went to bed at a sensible time and woke up to a sunny but chilly morning, thought about doing a time lapse but there were no clouds in the sky so, thought I would wait and see if any of the promised showers came through later. We all had a leisurely breakfast the plan was to take a look around town in the morning them when P arrived in the afternoon we planned a walk to have a look at the country side.
Eventually we were ready to go up to the centre of town to see what Winchcombe had to offer. Basically it has a T shaped layout with plenty of tut shops to browse. I left them to it and went for a walk round town. The sun seemed to be in the wrong position to take any decent photos being low and top the south east. I took a look round the church rose claim to fame is Catherine of Aragon’s autograph, a tapestry claimed to have been stitched by the lady herself. The stats of the church gave me this the whole run down of it history and insisted I take a photo of it, so I obliged.
We met up for coffee in an establishment called Wesley House, which serve red a great coffee and complimentary petit four, which were two thin circles of sugared flaky pastry with thing sliced banana and cream in the middle. It cost us £3.50 each which although expensive was worth it for the great tasting coffee and petit fours. We then went back for some lunch and wait for P to arrive so we could go for a walk.
We left Mr T in the house watching the rugby and after some discussion we headed outside to walk a circular walk taking in the local abbey ruins. The walk started on a gravel track but after about half a mile we hit the fields, which to out surprise were very muddy. A times we had to climb over fences to avoid the quagmire around the kissing gates and stiles. We were glad to get to the Abbey as it seems the abbots were wise and built it in an area which was not boggy, from there we headed up a hill which had orchards on the south facing slope, we got great views in the low winter light across the valley below, which Whinchcombe in the distance.
At the top of the hill it was time to turn around, so we headed down through an orchard the up the slope the other side. There was much slipping and sliding for someone behind especially when we cam a cross a very extensive land slip, where the earth ahead been twisted and mud bought to the surface. At one point we got lost but by following our nose we really were following the right route, it goes to show that you should trust your instincts a bit more. We got back to the hut at about 17:20 but not before experiencing a stunning sunset.
We had a table booked for 18:45 at a local hostelry called The White Hart, we had a good meal, slightly spoiled by someone’s toad in the hole being burnt then the replacement Fish & Chips being not really up to scratch. In fairness to the restaurant the service was very good and they knocked the bad dishes off the bill and did not charge for the 4 deserts we had, that said I would go back again.
We woke up at a reasonable 09:00 and had a leisurely breakfast. Then we lounged around for a few hours watching winter sports on Eurosport. Finally we got our selves together and went for a walk via pavements, to avoid the mud, into town and then on to Studley Castle just outside the town. It was closed but we got some fresh air. On the way back we stopped off at The Plaisterers arms for a coffee or beer, then we headed back to the hut said our farewells and we were off.
On the way home I tested out the Adaptive cruise Control on the Golf it is like cruise control but it will not let you get too close to any car in front, it makes driving on A roads really easy you just set the speed to 60 mph then if a car slows down in front the Golf slows down to keep a safe distance (adjustable) then speeds up if the car in front does, but it still stays within the 60 mph. We were back by 17:00 and ready to take out Tesco delivery before and evening in front of the telly before an early night.