A lifestyle blog
We love exploring, either close to home on an afternoon out, slightly further afield on a weekend away, or to a far flung destination picked because it happened to be on page 83 of the travel guide and we were asked to pick a number between 1 and 230.
You would be forgiven for not knowing this little church exists. It is tucked away at the end of a small lane behind nearby Billesley Hotel and a neighbouring farm. There was once a bustling village here but it was wiped out by the plague in the 1400s. There has been a church on this site since the 1100s but the present building has “only” been here since the 1800s.
The third of our “visit all the -cester towns in England” saw us spending the weekend in Towcester. It feels really mean to say that you dont need a whole weekend in Towcester, a morning will do it but there is a reason why people generally say ‘oh are you are off to Silverstone?” when you mention you are going there. Wikipedia is scant and even Google was reluctant to
I was thrilled when we were invited to experience an overnight stay at beautiful Billesley Manor recently. Not only because it is very close to one of our favourite areas of the country, the Cotswolds, but because it also meant to we got to visit another of the towns ending in cester, Alcester. You can read about that by clicking on the link, but for now what about the Billesley
When we set out to visit all the towns in England that end in cester I have to admit that I didn’t envisage us spending a day in Alcester as I had never heard of it. Despite the fact it lies just off the M40 and so therefore we have driven past it hundreds, if not thousands of times. Alcester is a market town that has been around since Roman
We were in Worcester for the weekend when we realised it was of only a handful of towns in England that end in cester. I say “we”. It wasn’t we at all, it was Bruce because that is how his brain works. Once we realised they were all “do-able” for a weekend we promised ourselves we would set out to visit them all this year. We found ourselves in Worcester
Did you know that there are only seven towns or cities in England that end in -cester? And if you ever find yourself saying “what are the towns that end in Cester?” I can tell you that in alphabetical order they are Alcester, Bicester, Cirencester, Gloucester, Leicester, Towcester, and Worcester. You are welcome. This isn’t why we ended up in Worcester in the middle of January but whilst having dinner
Bruce first visited Luciano forty years ago so he was excited to revisit when I mentioned that I fancied going there for dinner after seeing their posts on Instagram. Technically when he was last there it was a nightclub called Brasingamen’s where footballers and wannabe WAGs hung out, and not a beautiful restaurant run by popular chef Gino D’Acampo, but he was excited nonetheless. If you know Alderley Edge at
There are so many more things to do in Bath other than the baths that I thought I would do a post listing my favourite things to do in Bath that aren’t the baths. Don’t get me wrong, the baths are fantastic and something you should do but equally there are lots of other things to do that might be a little over shadowed. Bath is a relatively small city
When Hotel Indigo Bath got in touch to ask if we would like to experience a night away in their hotel we jumped at the chance. Bath is a city steeped in history and most of it, I am ashamed to say, new to me. We stopped off in Lacock on the way to Bath, a place that I highly recommend if Wiltshire is somewhere you haven’t been before. With
You would be forgiven for thinking you recognise a lot of Lacock, it features as heavily in period dramas as heaving bosoms and crinolines. The Abbey Cloisters above has been in many a Harry Potter film, and recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Wolf Hall were filmed in the Abbey itself. It is only when you wander the village that it dawns on you that there are no yellow
Woolbeding Garden is managed by the National Trust, though the house that sits within it is let by them to a private family (Lord Sainsbury and his partner who remains resident there following Lord Sainsbury’s death in 2006). To say the garden is a hidden gem would be an understatement. My parent live locally and even worship in Woolbeding Church yet they were unaware that such a spectacular garden lay
Before we travelled to Amsterdam over the Jubilee weekend I had done my research on top places to eat in Amsterdam, made a short list and booked at least one restaurant for each day. Bruce thought I was mad but knowing how busy it would be, with many places also still struggling with staffing levels I wanted to know we were in the places we wanted to be in. Leaving