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Published: June 29th 2011
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With the SatNav programmed for Wallingford, we said our farewells to Marilyn and Jim and headed off for the cottage in Wales where we will be staying for the next six nights.
We headed away from London along the M40 until we reached the A329 where we turned off to Wallingford. Hmmn, so glad we made the effort to drive through Wallingford ... not!! We didn't see a single thing that was reminiscent of Causton in Midsomer Murders. Ah well, it wasn't far out of our way.
After taking a couple of (very ordinary) photos of Wallingford, the SatNav was re-programmed for Burford which is at the gateway to the Cotswolds. We headed along the A4074 towards Oxford and after taking the ring road around the south of Oxford we joined the A40 heading west and found ourselves in Burford in time for lunch.
It was a beautiful day and the main street of Burford was very busy. We thought that we might struggle to find somewhere to park the car, but followed some 'P' signs that took us down a side street, past the church, along a narrow land and over an even narrower bridge to a
large, free car park that had plenty of spaces still vacant! As we walked back towards the main street we stumbled across a small restaurant advertising lunches in their secret garden. We thought that sounded lovely so in we went. We were taken out the back into a courtyard which did indeed lead into a secluded, very pretty and sun-filled garden where we enjoyed salads for lunch.
We re-programmed the SatNav again and continued on our way along the A40 until we turned off onto the A436 to skirt around the south of Cheltenham before changing to the A417 and rejoining the A40 which took us around the northern outskirts of Gloucester. With all of these road changes and lots of roundabouts we were both happy to have the SatNav telling us where to go!!
West of Gloucester at Huntley we turned onto the A4136 to drive through the Forest of Dean to Monmouth which found us back on the A40 which took us through Abergavenny to Brecon. We planned to buy some groceries at the Morrison's supermarket in Brecon before driving out to the farm where our cottage is located. Slight problem though, we arrived in Brecon
at about 4.15pm and all supermarkets in the UK must close at 4.00pm on Sundays!! Thank goodness for the off-licence where we managed to buy a few basics to keep us going until tomorrow.
So, with our very meagre food provisions, we drove out of Brecon towards Sennybridge with our eyes peeled for the turn-off. Bailea is so remote we couldn't actually program it into the SatNav and we had to follow the emailed directions we had saved in the iPad. The instructions proved more than adequate and we arrived at the farm without any wrong turns!!
The cottage is absolutely beautiful - more than fulfilling our expectations from the photos on the website. The countryside is beautiful too. We are surrounded by lush, green fields filled with sheep and cattle. All we can hear is lambs bleating and birds singing. We are only about a mile from the A40, but we can't hear any traffic at all. The hedgerows - and there are lots of them - must block all the road noise out??
After we were settled in, Bernie fired up the mi-fi and we were pleased to find that we have internet access despite
South Wales reputation for having notoriously bad coverage. The iPhones are not receiving a strong signal, but the mi-fi dongle thingy seems to be receiving a signal really well.
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