Tuesday, April 03, 2012

easter in a castle


Easter could definitely be worse.

We are staying in a manor house in south Gloucestershire. Obviously.

We're going with another Saffa couple, taking a long, slow meander up there, via the town of Chipping Sodbury and Bristol.

How's that for ridiculous. I wrote about Chipping Sodbury once (random) and now I'm going there.
We shall eat scones and forage for truffled chocolates in the gardens, and dress up all period Victoriana take the wellies to slosh around in, although I might suggest we hire costumes anyway.

Basically - we're having a proper English country manor house weekend. This isn't something I have done a lot of since living in the UK. Any spare long weekends have been taken up with going to Europe to tick more countries off my list. (I need to have gone to 100 countries before I die.)

Last Easter was spent in Portugal. Had my visa not expired, we would've spent this coming Easter in Estonia. I'm not joking.

And don't get me started on the Ukraine. I am dying to go there. And if I need just one reason to justify this (apparently I do, it's not exactly Spain), this is why:

Yes, that's a concrete spaceship. Socialist modernist brutalism, as seen in capital city Kiev. Need I say more?

But here we are - visaless and fucked off - so this is a nice opportunity to explore the country I now call home. I haven't been to Scotland yet. I haven't seen Yorkshire, or Cornwall (where the O'Toast ancestry originally hails from), and I certainly haven't seen Chipping fucking Sodbury.
And those are just the pretty places.

A group of us are going for a girls weekend in July to...Blackpool. And we're hiring a caravan. Again, this is not my jokey face.

But back to the manor house. Let's stay classy as long as we can.

The hotel is an ostentatious converted old castle-slash-manor house; Tortworth Court.* It might not be Estonia, but she might just do:

This is she. Isn't she gorgeous? Isn't she grand? Grand in all senses of the word, except the actual £1,000 - we found a good Eastery deal.

She has 30 acres of rolling, manicured lawns set on the edge of the town Wotton-under-Edge near the Cotswolds.

Dude. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Town names in the UK? More exciting than a 50% sale at Ted Baker.

And I've never been to the Cotswolds. Jolly ho and poppycock! Shall pack my red trousers and hunting jacket!**

* Haunted much? For extra Easter fun?

**And my wellies. And a few Easter eggs. Wait. Fuck. On diet.

3 comments:

Kookalooks said...

You haven't been to the Cotswolds? You haven't been to Scotland?? You're missing some of the best bits! Try get to Edinburgh during the Festival in August, it's just brilliant.

Gretta James said...

Please don't have high hopes about Chipping Sodbury.. It's just 1 street. A pretty street but it really is just a street.

However, from Chipping Sodbury you can do some really great walks through some of the cotswolds and just through some pretty countryside. I recommend that. And Bristol. Well Bristol is just the best.

Gretta x

Peas on Toast said...

Kookalooks - I know it's a bit crazy, so am actually pretty excited to spend some time exploring this little place for a while. And given it's summer(ish), there's no better time!

Edinburgh festival would be amazeballs...xx

Gretta - one street?! Can I get tea and crumpet on the one street?
Maybe I'll just get a picture with the sign :)

Agreed though, I would love to see Bristol, only heard good things, and cannot WAIT to take a walk through some Cotswoldy countryside. xxx