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Published: July 31st 2008
Cheltenham park
I'm pretty sure Jen told me the name, but can't remember, it was in the park where we had our picnic lunchAnother week in London consisted of my return to work and James still being a man of leisure, thus the need to escape and pretend we were still on holiday. We got some cheap bus fares and made our way north to Cheltenham to visit Jenni & Mat and attend the Postslip Beer Festival.
Proceeding our arrival, Jen took us on a walking tour of the lovely centre of town and 15 minutes later we were at Jen's place. Cheltenham is really pretty and thankfully summer decided to show up for the weekend and it was beautifully warm. We took it easy and had a lovely picnic in the park and later that evening we headed just outside of Cheltenham to the beer festival. The taxi ride on the way there was a tad interesting, considering James, Jen and I were the last to leave in our taxi and the others ahead knew where they were going, which we, and evidentally our taxi driver, didn't!
Thankfully we got there without delay and a bit of luck, and were dropped off in the middle of the country with farmland stretching for miles. The beer festival basically consisted of a converted
Cheltenham lake
5 minute walk from Jen's house barn which housed the barrels of ale, cider and the like, and revellers then made their way outside to the little hill area to enjoy their beverages. Now, I did go into this knowing it was a beer festival, but I was hoping that they might serve something else other than beer and was greeted with a resounding, 'Errh, no, this is a
beer festival, d'uh' so Jen and I stuck to the ciders. Not bad, but I get too full too quickly with beer, so was happy to sit back and chill. James and Mat got into it though, and there was some entertainment provided in the form of a really bad juggler (not hired, just there and juggling 'coz he could apparently), and of a guy on his bucks night presumably, and thus relegated to embarassing displays of practical nudity in the form of a Borat mankini (see the piccies and enjoy ladies).
The next day we hijacked one of Jen's friends, Wendy, and her car, and drove into the little village of Bibury which is apparently home to one of the most photographed streets in the Cotswolds ('wolds' meaning rolling hills and 'cots' meaning a native
Beer Festy Barn
Inside the likes of ales, bitters, ciders and other beer I can't remember. stone of some sort to this area of England). The street is Arlington Row and is a beautiful row of old cottages surrounded by old trees and situated next to a little river. The whole day was just beautiful and the town was the epitomy of the English countryside; tiny winding streets which were apparently two-way; lovely old stone houses with triangle shaped roofs and green, lush hills littered with grand old trees.
We visited the trout farm (as you do in the middle of the town) and stopped over for lunch at a pub/hotel, before making our way back to Cheltenham and then on to London. I'm liking what I see so far of the English countryside, definitely a different pace to that of London!
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Jen
non-member comment
Perry=Pear Cider
Took me a while to figure this out too but I can enlighten you now: most ciders are made from apples, but perry is made from pears and is a little sweeter (read: a little girlier and more to my liking!)