Pretty Villages in The Cotswolds

A very good friend’s birthday in The Cotswolds seemed like the perfect excuse for a few days in the countryside.

Us Brits are pretty bad at exploring our own green and pleasant land, but with everything that’s been going on politically it seems that staycations (or “stolidays” as we should probably call them) are on the rise.

The perfect excuse to see a little more of our island, as if you needed one when it looks like this…

We hurtled through the country, away from London and into pastures new.

Slowing as uninspiring service stations were soon replaced by chocolate box villages, carved from soft golden sandstone.

Between two such villages we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by never ending poppy fields.

Show me someone who can resist stopping to run through fields of waving poppies and I’ll show you someone who’s tired of life.

Paradise.

Having taken enough happysnaps to set up our own postcard shop, we set off again.

Parking up in Lower Slaughter, a pretty little village with a stream running through the middle.

We crisscrossed our way across the water, exploring every inch of the 1000 year old town.

Complete with a wedding, fresh from the church.

And cottages straight out of fairytales.

Red and white pinstripe dress – Blue and white pinstripe dress

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The little town actually glows under the summer sun.

Residents sell little bags of lavender from their doorsteps.

And no visit is complete without checking out the old water mill.

Where you can grab and ice-cream and sit with your feet in the water, watching the trout swim lazily in the warm shallows.

Life’s pretty slow around these parts, and I could certainly get used to it.

Having stopped to smell almost each and every one of the roses, we made a move.

Stopping into Bourton on The Water in search of lunch.

Another pretty (though somewhat bigger) waterside town.

It seemed like the perfect place for a bit of nostalgia and perhaps a trip down memory lane…

Wibbly houses, friendly pubs and gardens exploding with roses.

This place has it all.

We’d planned to have lunch at Rose Tree Café (for obvious reasons!) but it was closed, so we happily made do with a pub on the riverfront.

After a truly British lunch and slight snooze in the garden, we headed off.

Winding through the country roads in search of our hotel.

Getting a little sidetracked by the village we found it in.

Slaughter Pike, so much prettier than its name might suggest.

A quintessentially English spot.

And home to our hotel, “Lords of The Manor”.

Not a spot I’d recommend, but perfectly suitable as a home-base for exploring the surrounding countryside.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon stretched out on the lawn, before leaping head first into a cream tea.

A jolly nice day in the Great British countryside.