Fun-filled summer weekend

It was sunny this weekend just gone, and my family and I made the most of it.

On Saturday, we drove out to the Cotswolds -- to little-frequented Eastleach Turville, to be precise -- and enjoyed a beautiful, peaceful walk following the River Leach. We took a picnic with us and ate it sitting in the middle of a meadow. It was wonderful -- the warmth, the landscape, the company of my lovely family...

We came home via the heavily touristed, but still very pleasant, Cotwolds town of Burford. We had tea at landmark cafe Huffkins. What did we have? Their famous lardy cake, of course. Delicious! We also picked up some plants for our garden from a little nursery that operates out of the owner's front garden in the back streets of Burford.

On Sunday, we went for a late afternoon swim at the Abingdon open air pool, which was again lovely. Not too busy, dappled sunshine, pleasantly warm water. And we wound up with a post-swim drink at Abingdon's waterside pub, the Nag's Head. Their riverside garden is a great place to enjoy a drink in the sun.

Pretty good for one weekend, I think!

The Cotswold town of Burford

We had a fabulous family day out in the Cotswold town of Burford today. We used to visit Burford a lot when we first moved to Oxfordshire, but haven't visited for a long time and, as far as I remember, we haven't taken the kids there. So, we packed up a picnic and decided to give it a go.

We started off by doing a four mile walk in the countryside surrounding Burford. The Cotswolds landscape is truly gorgeous and we climbed lots of stiles (the kids love stiles), saw some foals (the kids love foals) and took in the tiny church in the village of Widford (very peaceful with beautiful wall paintings). We had our picnic in a lush valley bottom, halfway round the walk -- the perfect picnic spot.

After our walk, we got 'proper' ice creams in Burford (waffle cones and non-mass produced ice cream) and had a look round the numerous shops in the town. We particularly liked the Cotswold Cheese Company (lots of lovely cheeses, olives and savoury biscuits, with a cafe at the back where you could enjoy tasting platters and a glass of wine) and Burford Woodcraft (we were keen to show this shop to the kids as we bought our current coffee table there when we first moved down to Oxford, almost twenty years ago now).

On the way back to the car, we popped into Burford's church, which is very large with spectacular stained glass (fitting for a former wealthy wool town), and bought a couple of plants for our garden from a 'nursery' (actually an extensive Cotswold stone house which sells all sorts of cottage garden plants to passing tourists).

I arrived home feeling relaxed and restored. An excellent outcome for a bank holiday Saturday!