Chipping Campden, Broadway & Machester

Again, I know this is posted late, but better late than never. The Tuesday I was to leave to Manchester was first going to be another out of town adventure - Regis and I were off to Chipping Campden and Broadway, small towns a short TomTom visit away. The weather was overcast, but not rainy and so our journey started after a breakfast of Regis-made porridge, we were off! Chipping Campden is a town known for its sandstone buildings and the huge cemetery and church as we entered town was breathtaking. We found a parking spot and walked back to the field with the church in it and upon setting foot on the grass, my feet were soaked immediately. Worth it! Sheep were in the adjacent green, green fields and everything was so English! It was a perfect setting. We climbed the wall into the cemetery and looked around at the old tombstones, some dating to the 1800s. The sandstone was beautiful, and very different looking than ordinary old red brick or stucco. The town reminded me of Solvang, the Danish village near my house, but on a less kitschy scale. There were antique shops, tea rooms and little inns. There were Toby Jugs and Bunnykins in one antique shop, and the funny pairs of porcelain dogs my mom has in tea room windows. All of it reminded me of the English knick-knacks we have in our home.

There was a hill Regis wanted to find, so we trekked up the narrow streets trying to find it. The cottages all have names - Emily's Cottage, Meadow Manor, Foxenwood House, etc - no numbers, just the names! The new guy at the post office must have his work cut out for him when delivering mail...but they were just darling! There was one for sale on a corner lot with a cemetery attached and so we fantasized about the clearly low price of 100 pounds on account of the location...we both had 50 pounds in our wallets, so clearly it was fate...if it were true. I do wonder how much those cottages are though, as they were so cute and who wouldn't want a cottage in England? We did not find the hill right away, but found a farm trail and a stack of sugar beets and tie-dyed sheep munching on the vegetables. The view was great, but the overcast weather did not lend itself to breathtaking photos. As it was afternoon already, we decided to trek back to the car and head to the other little town of Broadway for lunch.

A short drive later, we arrived in Broadway - a clearly more upscale town with more upscale-looking tea rooms and castle-like inns and boutique shops. We walked around a bit, taking cliche photos in the red telephone boxes and quickly realizing that the restaurants were already closed and wouldn't reopen until dinner time. Lame. We ended up staying about 10 minutes in Broadway and left for Coventry again to find food and get me to the train station. Pub food, repacking and a tearful goodbye and I was on the 2 hour train to Manchester. Poor Stasys was waiting for me for quite a while, and Manchester was wet, wet, wet. Happened to stop at the store to get peanut butter cookie makings and made a better batch to redeem myself for the 'used the wrong brown sugar last time' batch. Yum.