Tuesday 24 July 2012

England in fine form

My lovely wife and I went away for the weekend without the children, an anniversary treat to us. We headed south and west and stayed in a lovely place north of Bristol called Wotton under Edge. Having never even heard of the place before it was a delight to find, the local chip shop can surely never make much profit with the massive portions they give away.

We spent Saturday wandering around Bath, it had been a while since our last visit and looked great, the new area around the bus station was a joy to see – the attempt to fit in and match the older surroundings and still be modern was successful. We found a lovely market in the old railway station, what a perfect setting it made and in light of the sudden arrival of summer around here it provided much needed shade.

In the evening we decided that a stroll by the sea was in order so we headed down to Weston Super Mare, I had only been once before about sixteen years ago and my memory was not holding up well on that. Upon arrival I found the place much nicer than I remembered, the beach clean welcoming although you won’t find me on the sand due to a little phobia involving sand in my shoes!
We looked for somewhere to eat, a few tacky chip shops seemed to be calling us, or even worse than that a flipping McD’s. Then we had a great find, a little place down a side street called CafĂ© La Mer in West Street, this was pleasant, had great food at a good price and a charming individual character. If you head down that way give it a try.

On Sunday we headed to Avebury in Wiltshire – this was another new place for me and so much nicer than I had a right to expect, the Morris Dancers were entertaining, the ice creams dreamy.

On the road in the car I listened to a report that foreign media were reporting how down on the summer and the Olympics the English are; well all I can say to that is "rubbish". The country is in lovely shape, the good weather has arrived and I am sure that the games will be great, never mind how many medals the UK gets (I don’t like the name Team GB as it disrespectfully leaves out Northern Ireland).
As you can tell, no comedy gigs done and no writing over the weekend but what the heck it was a great weekend.

2 comments:

  1. My friend Tim the cheesemaker has a stall in the farmers market you found there.

    As for Weston Super Mare, that's the biggest town close to where we're going on holiday, glad it's looking all spick and span!

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    1. I love cheese and have done ever since at school my class got to do a taste test afternoon for the big supermarket in Northampton (not advertising them here) my favourite remains from that day to this - Stilton.

      As for your friend on the market, I wish I had known.

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