Beautiful Bibury

*The gate to our cottage*

Back at the beginning of January N and I celebrated our 7 year get-together-versary by going away for a weekend. Every year this weekend is our Christmas gift to each other. This year we decided to go to Bibury in the Cotswolds (mostly due to a fabulous offer at the hotel which meant that we had a suite, complete with outside hot tub, champagne, chocolates, strawberries, an orchid, dinner and breakfast! N.B going away for a weekend in January is a really good idea - everywhere has brilliant offers).

We arrived in Bibury on a cold clear afternoon after visiting the amazing candle-lit Wild Duck Inn in Ewen for a slap up pub lunch. N had driven to Wales the night before and many a fun car game was played on the journey across the border including my favourite: sing song x in the style of person y. We arrived at the hotel, full of warm delicious food, and were a little taken aback when we were directed back out of the hotel and along the street to our very own little cottage with an apple tree overhanging our hot tub! Inside my excitement continued to rise as we were shown into the lounge where the aforementioned bottle of champagne, chocolates and strawberries awaited us! Upstairs was the bedroom and huge bathroom complete with a rubber duck for the bath!!!

*The hot tub*

We had a pre-dinner dip in the hot tub and then went back inside to get ready for dinner, sipping away at the old champagne. Later that evening as we walked to the restaurant, soft snow flakes started to fall all around us and the next morning we awoke to a picture postcard snowy Cotswolds village:

*The bridge to the hotel*

*The hotel*

*Arlington Row Alms Houses*

It was so cold that on the way to breakfast we noticed that the hotel's fountain had completely frozen over:

Bibury is a beautiful little village and driving through the Cotswolds the following day we got to talking about holidaying and how our favourite trips of 2008 had actually taken place in the UK. There are so many lovely spots in our country and so many that I haven't seen. So after our trip to California in April we are going to make a concerted effort to pack up our camping gear and explore the UK!