I'm Far Away in England!!

I am at this  very  moment  sitting on a bed in a hotel in a town in the Cotswolds  called Chipping Norton, taking advantage  of the free wifi. We passed on the idea of sitting in a restaurant and eating some kind of creative nouveau artistic over priced food in favor of grabbing a pizza and two cokes from the local pizza/kabob place and eating it in our room instead. It was delicious and economical. Hubby's got an episode of Top Gear on the television and all is right with the world.

We arrived in England via the Gatwick  Airport on Friday  morning. We got our little rental car and Hubby did quite well navigating on the opposite side of the road. Nothing,  however could have prepared us for the "Fresh Hell" that was  the M 25 which is the highway that essentially goes around  London. We kept thinking the stop and go traffic was  due to construction or an accident, but it was neither.

We thought we would do better  once we got off that highway and onto the M 3 but alas that was not to be. The only ones who were  making any headway  were the motorcycle drivers  who whipped between the cars.

We had prebooked our first night back home but when we finally made it to the town and then found the hotel, we discovered  they didn't have anything under our name. It was a bit of a relief actually because the place was filthy dirty, tired, and seemed to be the gathering place for an assortment of interesting individuals, so off we went to find a different spot for the night. This took a long time but we ended up in Chippingham. We were utterly exhausted due to not having slept since two nights prior and driving so long. We were very happy  to be sleeping that night.

The next day ( Saturday) was wonderful starting off after a full English breakfast  and going to Castle Combe. There is just too much to write about, but I will include a picture and a promise of another  post soon.

This is the magnificent manor house at Castle Combe which was built in the 1300's, I think. No, it's  not where  we  stayed, but you can, for the right amount of money!

More later...