When: 05/07/2011

Where: Chipping Camden, Cotswolds, England

Stayed: Cotswold House, Chipping Camden

Ok, so I know this is where I’m supposed to talk about how relaxing, quiet and picturesque the Cotswolds are. How the fresh crisp country air is rejuvenating, the cottages and cobble stone streets are straight out of an oldy worldy english movie and how the tea rooms are so quaint that you feel as though you’re at your Grandma’s pad. Yep, the Cotswolds are all those things and more but I’m ashamed to say that Justin and I spent a lot of the time waiting for something to happen.
We went from craving peace and quiet after feeling suffocated in London, to pacing the pavements looking for some action. The sad state of affairs is this – after years of city living, we appear to have evolved into beings who are incapable of relaxation.After swinging by Cheltenham for a homemade lunch of sandwiches and tea, popping into Broadway for scones and tea and expoloring the streets of Chipping Campden before having yet another cup of tea we promptly declared ourselves ‘tea-d out’. Time for a beer. We spent the next hour stalking people using our fail safe ‘follow the locals and you’ll find the best drinking spot’. Unfortunately the local demographic was a little removed from our age group and we ended up doing circle work in the streets, dangerously close to a tea room. We finally settled in a beer garden which backed onto a car park just opposite our hotel – it was basically empty but had no tea in sight so we were happy. With very little people watching to keep us interested we then scoped out the local restaurants for an early dinner. As always, a good bottle of red and copious amounts of food did the trick.

A trip to Stratford Upon Avon on the way home the following day rounded out our trip to the Cotswolds. Not sure what I was expecting to find in Shakespeare land but a carnival with all walks of life crawling the river banks wasn’t part of the picture. A child with his pants down, doing his business on the main street was the deal breaker. Gagging, we fled back to the car.

I feel slightly jaded that we’re unable to really rave about our trip to the Cotswolds. Perhaps the fact that we felt under pressure to come back feeling relaxed didn’t help. The underlying pulse of ‘in the Cotswolds you must relax, must relax, must relax’ of course has the opposite effect. Ah, let’s face it, relaxation will never be a strong suit of mine.

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