A slice of Cotswolds' life

For the August bank holiday weekend, Laura, Stuart and I headed to the Cotswolds for a weekend of dining and rambling.

We stayed in Kingham which is quite central and a good base for our chosen pubs.

We arrived mid-afternoon and wandered around Chipping Norton. We spent ages browsing in the excellent book shop, Jaffe & Neale, before checking into our B&B. I bought a book called The Butterfly Isles by Patrick Barkham. We'd seen him speak at Latitude Festival the previous year so I'd been wanting to read it and managed to pick up a signed copy.

On Saturday night we walked 3 minutes around the corner to the Kingham Plough - a favourite of Stu & Kris' - for an excellent dinner and a quiet celebration of Stuart's birthday. I had venison salami to start, a rabbit and crayfish pie for main which was beautifully rich and flavoursome, and we shared birthday cake (with sparkler) for dessert.

Rabbit & crayfish pie

At dinner

Back at the B&B we polished off a bottle of red and let Stu win scrabble ;-)

On Sunday we drove a bit further north and spent a few hours enjoyably rambling a circular route through Cleaves Common and having a late ploughman's lunch in one of the nearby villages.

Butterfly spotting! Having read The Butterfly Isles, I can now tell you this is a Hedge Brown.
It's sometimes known as a Gatekeeper because it hangs around grasses by farm gates and has a friendly, busy-body personality.

We made a pit stop at the Daylesford Organic Farm that day too. A very pricey lifestyle cafe, spa and organic grocer with homewares and gardening supplies. Naturally I wanted to buy everything ;-) Generally I limit myself to an occasional coffee or brunch at one of their cafes in London (Chelsea and Notting Hill of course!).

Before long we were making our way to dinner again but this time at The Fox Inn in Lower Oddington. I've been a few times before so knew it would be good. It's a slightly more relaxed affair than the Plough but the food is just as good and it has a proper, cosy country pub feel.

To begin with I had a roquefort and walnut salad (I was kidding myself that this was the light option!). For main I had a fish pie that was well done (they can be hit & miss), and for dessert I had one of the best pavlovas I've ever had (I feel like a traitor!) with a perfect balance of strawberries, cream, and chewy and crunchy meringue. This time, I won the after dinner game of scrabble!

My new house in Lower Oddington

Delicious!

On Monday we checked out a few more villages and stopped for morning tea at Chipping Camden (not because we were hungry but the scones in the window lured us in!) before heading back to London.

It was a nice chilled, country weekend. We drove off planning how we would spend our lottery winnings on a country house in the Cotswolds...

Chipping Camden