Optimistic October: Vice and Virtue (Cotswolds: Part 2)
One great thing about having a holiday is that there's no need to have a to-do list; you just have fun.
Here's Bourton-on-the-Water on Sunday morning.
It seems Bourton-on-the-Water is always crowded at weekends, but we did get to visit the model village, which is quite nice, although we got stuck behind this woman who was insisting on posing her grandkid's toy unicorn on all the buildings, and getting shots. It's always strange to me how so many people can not notice that they're in the way.
We went into a quite modern cafe to get drinks; it was interesting inside, but there was an annoying couple who shoved past us to procure a table, and got grumpy at a younger couple who were standing near to it. Just for the sake of some celebrity spotting, I'm fairly certain we walked past Michael Sheen, with a child in a pushchair.
We had lunch - and toffee apples - back at the lodge.
We spent the afternoon at Chastleton House, which I suddenly recognised from a childhood incident.
I'd been coming out of the house (aged about nine) and saw a dog come bounding out from the walled garden. Having no common sense, I dashed back the other way, only to realise the dog was chasing me, because running from animals always attracts their attention; I remember going and hiding in the house, and feeling very foolish afterwards.
There were some interesting people to watch there this weekend, including a man and a woman who may or may not have been a couple; they were almost like a real life version of Sheldon and Amy, mostly that he seemed intent on getting grumpy at her, and at one point seemed to go rushing on ahead in the house. We saw him getting annoyed at her, and waving at her to get out of his oh-so-precious camera shot of the house (photographers who wave at bystanders to GTFO of their way always annoy me), which she seemed to take umbrage at as she got annoyed back at him.
The pub that evening was nice; we were impressed at how good our waiter was at remembering our orders, though I was perplexed when another waiter appeared out of nowhere, refilled my sister's glass with what was left of the water, and left, ignoring my empty glass, and didn't bring us more. I couldn't work out if he took my "thanks" to mean that I didn't want any (which it didn't).
Our last day; we decided to drive past Jeremy Clarkson's farm shop, "Diddly Squat"; it took us a couple of times to see, mostly because we had the usual situation where we try to slow down, but we have another car practically tailgating us, with a driver who probably won't understand what we're doing.
We went to Stowe Park on the way back; its a very attractive place just to walk around, with some really nice scenery. I was thinking about how I could make a positive change to society; the best I managed was to say hi to a couple of passers by, something I'm not always good at, and I realise that I'm only in an extroverted mood at certain times, and occasionally I'll just want to avoid speaking to others; I'm weird like that.
We tried following the paths of "Vice" and "Virtue"; they were scenic.
I felt a little bad about skipping taekwon-do, but I really wanted to chill out yesterday evening, and watch House of the Dragon.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
And they bucked the usual trend by killing off their main character (Viserys the Peaceful) at the end of episode 8. That was a strangely Matt Smith-free episode, but enjoyable. I did have to go back to the recap to check whether Viserys really did want Aegon (the mad king) to be his heir.
I'm still finding the relationship between Daemon and his own niece to be ... ewww ... but I'm guessing it's part of the GoT canon.
I've recorded just over an hour for two Strava Challenges: The Livestrong 25/25 Challenge (2 hours, 55 minutes) and The MAAP Transcend Terrain Challenge. I've also climbed 601m for CLIMB-IT for WaterAid.
Here's Bourton-on-the-Water on Sunday morning.
It seems Bourton-on-the-Water is always crowded at weekends, but we did get to visit the model village, which is quite nice, although we got stuck behind this woman who was insisting on posing her grandkid's toy unicorn on all the buildings, and getting shots. It's always strange to me how so many people can not notice that they're in the way.
We went into a quite modern cafe to get drinks; it was interesting inside, but there was an annoying couple who shoved past us to procure a table, and got grumpy at a younger couple who were standing near to it. Just for the sake of some celebrity spotting, I'm fairly certain we walked past Michael Sheen, with a child in a pushchair.
We had lunch - and toffee apples - back at the lodge.
We spent the afternoon at Chastleton House, which I suddenly recognised from a childhood incident.
I'd been coming out of the house (aged about nine) and saw a dog come bounding out from the walled garden. Having no common sense, I dashed back the other way, only to realise the dog was chasing me, because running from animals always attracts their attention; I remember going and hiding in the house, and feeling very foolish afterwards.
There were some interesting people to watch there this weekend, including a man and a woman who may or may not have been a couple; they were almost like a real life version of Sheldon and Amy, mostly that he seemed intent on getting grumpy at her, and at one point seemed to go rushing on ahead in the house. We saw him getting annoyed at her, and waving at her to get out of his oh-so-precious camera shot of the house (photographers who wave at bystanders to GTFO of their way always annoy me), which she seemed to take umbrage at as she got annoyed back at him.
The pub that evening was nice; we were impressed at how good our waiter was at remembering our orders, though I was perplexed when another waiter appeared out of nowhere, refilled my sister's glass with what was left of the water, and left, ignoring my empty glass, and didn't bring us more. I couldn't work out if he took my "thanks" to mean that I didn't want any (which it didn't).
Our last day; we decided to drive past Jeremy Clarkson's farm shop, "Diddly Squat"; it took us a couple of times to see, mostly because we had the usual situation where we try to slow down, but we have another car practically tailgating us, with a driver who probably won't understand what we're doing.
We went to Stowe Park on the way back; its a very attractive place just to walk around, with some really nice scenery. I was thinking about how I could make a positive change to society; the best I managed was to say hi to a couple of passers by, something I'm not always good at, and I realise that I'm only in an extroverted mood at certain times, and occasionally I'll just want to avoid speaking to others; I'm weird like that.
We tried following the paths of "Vice" and "Virtue"; they were scenic.
I felt a little bad about skipping taekwon-do, but I really wanted to chill out yesterday evening, and watch House of the Dragon.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
And they bucked the usual trend by killing off their main character (Viserys the Peaceful) at the end of episode 8. That was a strangely Matt Smith-free episode, but enjoyable. I did have to go back to the recap to check whether Viserys really did want Aegon (the mad king) to be his heir.
I'm still finding the relationship between Daemon and his own niece to be ... ewww ... but I'm guessing it's part of the GoT canon.
I've recorded just over an hour for two Strava Challenges: The Livestrong 25/25 Challenge (2 hours, 55 minutes) and The MAAP Transcend Terrain Challenge. I've also climbed 601m for CLIMB-IT for WaterAid.