and a week later

here I am again.

Saturday we woke up to rain on our windows. (Um, that's LAST Saturday, the 16th, as we were on holiday.) Bob found a nifty forecasting site that said it would be heavy rain today, high of "2," but tomorrow would be sunny with a high of "8." Now the temps were in Celsius, but even then we could see that 8 is warmer than 2. So we talked it over briefly, and decided Saturday shouldn't be spent walking around outside. Which left driving, or staying in one indoor location, which is deceptive because there is no indoor location interesting enough to stay in a whole day with a parking lot. Yeah, I mean "no indoor location with its own parking lot that is interesting enough to stay in all day." Or wait, that doesn't work either - nobody has a parking lot interesting enough to stay in all day. So forget grammar, on with the story.
So Saturday we drove around. First we went west to Cirencester, which actually has a museum, but I'm not sure if we would have found it. We followed signs to a Roman Amphitheater that is supposed to seat 8000 people, and we couldn't find it. So we drove around the "Cotsold Water Park" which has no slides, wave pools, or innertubes - it's just a collection of small lakes - and ended up in Cricklade (I think). We drove through town, but wanted to see the church, so came back through and found a parking spot. (I make it sound easy, no? And Bob makes it look easy, but I'm pretty sure no one reading this would like to try turning around or parking our bus on their streets!) We walked up to the church (the "heavy" rain having stopped) and looked around.
We then walked on through town, looking for food. I picked out a diner promising homemade food, complete with a young couple sitting near the window and sharing a giant ice cream. Bob sent me in to scope it out, and there seemed to be largish tables in the back, so we went in. Turns out the large table was reserved, but there was a table for 4 open, and behind it (in a cubby hole) an open table for 2. Good enough; we squeezed in and examined the menu. The children picked out an assortment of sandwiches, breakfast items, and pizza. Bob and I ordered sandwiches. Turns out they were out of pizza, so back to the menu. A lovely standby item - hamburger. Well, or course hamburgers coat differently than pizzas, so I had to go back to the counter to figure out the price difference. It took me one try to get the amount figured, but the waitress had to figure it 3 times, and then get both a calculator and a pen and paper to work it out right. Then, funny thing, I said "cheeseburger" instead of "hamburger" and she said they don't have cheeseburgers. hmmm, they have burgers, and cheese... but oh, well. Then, they come with "hoops" which I supposed was a sort of potato chippy thing that we've had before; not great, but unoffensive. She said "spaghetti hoops" which made me wonder, but it was included in the meal so I took them. So back to the table, and the food was already coming out. Only, they apparently can only cook 3 dishes at a time. So the first 3 came out, and then the next 3 (a few minutes later), and then the next table got theirs. Um, hello? Oh, the friendly waitress noticed some of us were done already and Bob didn't have a plate, so she went to check on it. A few minutes later and his came out. Here's the deal - the 'hamburgers' were just beef patties-no bread. And the "hoops" were not hoops at all, but canned spaghetti (like Spaghetti-o's except it wasn't "o's." With a bit of ketchup, the patties were eaten, but no one liked the hoops. All told, we weren't impressed with the place. Bob stopped in a grocery on the way back to the car and bought some hobnobs.

Then we went back to the base to check out the store (having inquired of the bowling alley staff, we knew the hours were 10-4). It was about the size of our shoppette, and was supposed to make up for all 3 of our stores. No selection, but we were able to get toothbrushes and a comb. They also had flip-flops for $1 each pair, so we got a couple. We also filled up with gas, and found out that the gas station would be open for a couple of hours on Monday. Then we were back on the road, this time to the north.

By trying to take the smaller roads, and making 'random' choices based on the signposts, we ended up in Bibury. Who knew it would be so lovely? (A lot of people, apparently! Some famous person once said it was the prettiest village in the country.) After much arm-twisting, Bob parked to take pictures of the water. ;-) I went across the street to the post office, where I bought a small book on the town. Then I convinced Bob to let the children out, and we walked down a footpath across a bridge, through some mud, under trees, and back across a bridge to the 'trout farm' gift store. Bob got a mug and I got a jar of chocolate curd, and each child got a cheap trinket. It was getting dark, so we headed back to Fairford. The welcome book in our room had mentioned a Chinese takeaway in town, and we wanted to find it, and the sign post for Fairford town said it had a "world famous church." We got a parking spot near the church, and walked up to it, but it was closed for the day. So we went on through town, and found two Chinese places (next door to each other). We picked one, ordered a bunch of food and sat down to wait. The man was very friendly and gave each child a sucker. Got the food (in a crate to carry it home), walked back to the bus, and drove back to the hotel. By now we are starting to learn our way around! The chicken balls were a bit greasy, and the honey-lemon sauce tasted like canned lemonade concentrate, but the sweet and sour sauce was good, and Bob said it's the best Cashew chicken he's had in the UK.

And thus concludes our Saturday.