cotswolds

On a very rainy bank holiday Monday in late May we boarded a coach at London Victoria bound for the Cotswolds.

I had tended to associate daytrip coach travel with the elderly, but our coach (advertised in the ex-pat favourite TNT magazine) was targeted squarely at the budget traveller. Our bus (of the reconditioned last-legs variety) was overshadowed at the rest stops by coaches of the shiny new plush reclining seats type. While I did not envy them this, I’m sure their guide was someone other than a 21-year old Canadian, seemingly just off the boat and with a vocabulary that did not extend far beyond the ability to describe places as ‘really, really beautiful’, ‘really, really historic’ or ‘really, really historical and beautiful’. She varied the tone when recounting a famous medieval battle (‘the streets were like flowing with blood and gore, it was like, really, really bloody’), although the description may have been slightly more evocative if she had waited until we had entered the town rather than describing it while we were stuck in a traffic jam outside a BP service station.

The Cotswolds are a collection of small towns and villages, known for being traditionally ‘English’. This means plenty of tea shops, antique stores and rolling countryside. While they were once thriving rural villages, I think they now primarily cater to tourists and moneyed Londoners who roll up on the weekends in their 4-wheel drives.

The weather meant plenty of excuses to duck inside tearooms for a warm drink and slice of cake (or in Brendan’s case a smuggled gluten-free macaroon). It was, like, a really, really beautiful day … and historical, you guys. Really.