First day of winter in Oz, first day of summer in England!
Started the day by going to morning service at the local Church of England (St John the Baptist Crowthorne), a nice little church with a female minister, Rev Lisa Cornwell, who is a clone of Alice the Verger in The Vicar of Dibley! Same size, same face, just about the same voice - most disconcerting! Nice friendly people although it was very high church.
After lunch we went with Jean and Chris to return Alex to his parents, halfway between Crowthorne and Hereford. We then carried on to the Cotswolds, specifically to Stow-on-the-Wold which Ron had been looking forward to visiting. It is a lovely town, full of history, including England's oldest inn, The Eagle and Child, which dates from 947AD - hard to get your head around something that old! Mind you, The Royalist Pub also claims a date of 947AD! One highlight was a coffee shop with the sign "Yes, we can make flat whites" - we had found that no one understood what a flat white was up until then. We could get lattes, cappuccinos and espressos but flat white had the baristas stumped! Needless to say, we had to try one.
After leaving Stow we meandered over to Burford, an exquisite village with the most beautiful stone houses and little alleyways leading to flower-filled courtyards, just waiting to be photographed. We had dinner in one of the local pubs and then drove "home", where Ron is now ensconced in front of the TV watching England v Trinidad & Tobago (soccer of course), with David Beckham reinstated as England's captain.
We saw some more oddly named towns/villages, such as: Birdlip, Cold Aston, Lower Swell, Water Eaton, Workingham Without and Workingham With. We're amassing quite a selection of odd names - the other day we came across: Snitterfield Hampton Lucy, Radford Semele, Pinkneys Green and Straight Solely!
Goodnight!
