Right Hand DrivENG 2014: The Cotswolds: Blind corners lead to all things quaint

We've only had three near accidents so far on the trip, which we think is pretty decent. All three involved roundabouts and forgetting who had the right of away. It turns out in all three...they did. In each case they were trucks or a bus. So we go big. You'll understand our excitement when the number of roundabouts seemed to decrease as we reached the Cotswolds. Well, the excitement was short lived. Roundabouts have been replaced with blind corners on thin roads. The speed limit is 50mph on these winding roads for who knows what reason (although, it is fun when you are the only car on them, not going to lie here). We have learned our lesson from the roundabouts and yield even when its a bird flying in our direction, one can not be too safe.

Today we explored some of the towns/villages in the Cotswolds. Some were just drive-throughs with our own audio added as in "Oh, look that's cute" or "Check out that one to the left, so cute!" or "Cute front door." Our vocabulary was limited but it in our opinion "cute" truly describes the sights.

We stopped in a couple towns Stow-on-the-wold and Bourton-on-the-Water. If we had to choose we'd say Stow was our favorite. Stow had a cute town area (yes, we just used 'cute' again) with lots of shops and antique stores. Brian and I found the best wingback chair in one of the shops, and it was only 95 pounds. Too bad it would have cost us an arm and a leg to ship it. We walked around town and did some car-spotting as well. Insert "cool" or "awesome" instead of "cute" in all instances of cars we see so you'll get a full idea of our conversations.

Here is an instance of "Awesome" & "Cute" (Its going to be really hard to leave England without bringing a Defender with us).

"Pow" fist door-knocker.

A mincemeat shortbread pic for our Uncle Catfish. If you haven't had mincemeat before, it tastes like ketchup gone bad.

Yep, its a bit crooked from here too guy. You should try holding up the other side instead.

Mint condition MGB GT. We almost bought one of these awhile back. We really like hatchbacks okay, its an issue.

We think there might have been a car meet-up because we saw this XKE

...then this one. Our fav of the two (duh, its a coupe). Wish it was blue.

Found it! This is a Jaguar Wagon. Awesome!

In Stow-on-the-Wold they gave us our own corner. No big deal.

Our next stop was Bourton-on-the-Water. Its a little village with a small river running through it, hence the "on-the-Water." Bourton felt very much like a tourist trap village. The average age of the majority of tourists was 70+ in this town. People arrive by the busload to sit by the little river and have tea. That was not our goal. What were we most excited about? The miniature model village! It doesn't take much to get us excited apparently.

The model village is a one-ninth scale replica of the village. The man who built is started it in 1937 and completed it in 1940. Its historically registered, so obviously that is why we had to go (not really, we just like mini things).

"Look out, its Brizillla!"

Brian and Jen looking at the miniature of the miniature.

A close up of the miniature of the miniature.

Here is a miniature of the miniature of the miniature. Yeah, they went there.

This is generally what people do in Bourton.

This is what people eat in Bourton, fish n' chips with pea mash. Jen and i had chicken nuggets in case you were wondering.

After lunch we went on a walk to the next village because that is what you do here. Our destination was Lower Slaughter, not the most pleasent sounding name.

A welcoming church door on our way to Lower Slaughter. We hear attendance is down......hmmm.

Using this phone would be quite a shock. Get it?

Our favorite sign in england, and a good warning about bottom pinching.

The sign does not lie! Luckily they didn't see us, so our bums were safe....this time.

This sheep had some serious eyebrows.

These next few shots are for Liz. It took us forever to find horses here. Sheep seem to dominate. This was an Equestrian center we walked by on our way to Lower Slaughter.