Cotswolds

On Wednesday morning, we picked up a car at Heathrow airport (we weren't flying anywhere, but it seemed to be the easiest place to get a rental car), and started on a driving trip around the Cotswolds. My mother drove the car as we left the airport, but seemed so nervous and shrieked so many times at roundabouts (after all, driving on the left-hand side of the road is a new thing), that when we finally reached Chipping Norton, I took over the driving for the rest of the trip.

I found driving on the left to be both weirdly easy and weirdly challenging. For instance, at one point I had to parallel park the car, but that wasn't really a problem at all, as I quickly and easily parked only two inches away from the kerb. Yet, I found myself constantly fighting the urge to drift left in the lane, and given how narrow English country lanes are, this was a VERY bad thing! Yet, even as I kept an eye on the car's position in the road by looking in my mirrors, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to drive head-on into oncoming traffic. I mostly held my nerve, but also hit the rumble strips (and nearly took out a few stone walls at the side of the road) quite a bit.

Unfortunately it rained nearly constantly on our first day, so while we did get out and wander through a few small towns, I was mostly shivering and huddling under my umbrella, and ducking into churches when I could to warm up.

In the evening we stayed at a farm B&B, which was a B&B in the most classic sense; some people who had tried to make a living by farming have realised that it doesn't quite pay all of the bills, but by renting out some of the rooms in your house and cooking breakfast for tourists in the morning, you can make a pretty decent living.

The place was nice enough, a suite with a fold out sofa whilst my parents slept in the bedroom. In the morning, the owner made us breakfast, and we went on for another day of touring.

We drove through small towns throughout the day, occasionally getting out to walk on public footpaths to other towns. It was funny as my parents realised for the first time that although the foot paths are public, they run right through fields where cows or sheep may be grazing, and they may decide to come over and check out what you're up to. I turned around at one point to discover my mother quite ineffectually shoo away cows that were searching her to see if she had any treats for them!

When we made it to the next town, where they had the coolest public restrooms in the local car park that had these amazing three-in-one automated sinks, where you stuck your hands under, it squirted your hands with soap, then turned on the water, and then after a bit the hot air dryer came on to dry your hands. Your hands got completely clean and you didn't have to move them at all. And all this in the tiniest small town in England you've ever come across.

We stopped for lunch at a small tearoom, talked to some little old ladies, and then made our way back to the car, and onto the next cute little town on our list of places to visit, Lower Slaughter.

When I parked the car (parallel parked!) I recognized where we were, and pointed out to my mother that we wanted to go left as the beautiful bridges and old mill were further down the river in that direction. Which of course alerted my mother to something I'd avoided mentioning up to this point as she asked, "You've been here before? When?"

Ah yes, the best part of this entire trip was that the last time I'd gone on a tour through the Cotsworlds, it had been with my boyfriend at the time, Simon. And instead of trekking around with my parents and sleeping on a pull-out sofa bed, we'd basically spent the entire time poking around cute towns laughing and giggling until we could get back to our hotel room and poke each other. It was one of those classic trips that has all the hallmarks of the early stages of a relationship, which is to say way too much fascination with having sex with each other rather that taking in the places you are visiting.

So in some ways it was nice to see all of these places properly, but on the other hand it somehow brought back the reminder that it's been nearly a year since I've had sex with anyone. (Ironically enough, the person a year ago was Simon. I won't say that was a poor decision because the sex was even more amazing than I'd remembered, but in some ways it was a terrible idea as it just reminded me of what I've been missing out on). Anyway, I just told my mother that I'd been with Simon, in a voice that clearly implied I didn't want to discuss it, and thankfully she took the hint.

We returned to Stow-on-the-Wold for dinner that evening, and when we had trouble finding a table for the three of us, a couple that was sitting at a long table with benches invited us to join them at the other end of their table. We didn't talk at first, but after they heard our accents they inquired where we were from, and in the end we had an absolutely lovely conversation with them, which totally convinced my parents that England is just full of kind, warm, wonderful and friendly people.

On the final day, there was some rain in the morning, so we just drove through some small towns, but luckily it cleared up in time for us to visit some formal gardens owned by the National Trust in the afternoon. My mother seemed to particularly enjoy the gardens, we met some really nice old people, including one elderly couple who inspired me by telling me they'd been nomads for 60 years together, and my father just raved again about how nice the people in England are.

Finally at the end of the day, we headed back to Heathrow to drop off the car, although given that it was pouring rain and the directions for the car rental drop-off were incredibly poorly marked, I'm glad once again that I was driving and not my mother. However we made it back unscathed, and I now have a lot more confidence in my ability to drive in England than I did before. Maybe I'll try this again sometime...