Holiday in Warwickshire - Day 4

On the Tuesday of our holiday we went to Hatton Country Park which was only a few miles away from where we were staying. My friend SB lives in Coventry so I'd asked them where was good to go and they'd suggested the park as it has a GUINEA PIG VILLAGE. This had enticed me straight away, so we booked tickets. I think it was about £13 each? Lee did it online on the Sunday of our holiday. We had to choose a time so we went for 11.

You walk through a little shopping village on the way to the animals, so we decided to go into some shops on the way back, and get some lunch. We went into a gin place and I bought some Christmas presents, which was nice. 

There was a ton of stuff to do in the park, so I would recommend it for families with kids but also for people like us, as we had a lot of fun for the money too. We bought some of the animal food and fed the goats and sheep and pigs in the first barn. The second area has the GUINEA PIGS. The female pigs' bit has a ramp where piggies can walk up and get to fresh food, so we watched one cutie doing that in there for a bit. Then it was GUINEA PIG feeding time. A staff member came across with fresh cabbage leaves for the piggies. She took some of the female pigs out of their pen and let a few children who were around hold them. And Lee held one too! She was a cutie, she ate some cabbage leaf out of my hands. We were there ages. The staff member then gave us some cabbage leaf to feed to the boy pigs. We sat on the edge of their pen (it was like a low wall) and fed them, that was also very cute. We were both certain that the GUINEA PIGS were worth the price of admission alone. 

The next little bit had reptiles and snakes. Some of them I like but I'm a bit scared of snakes and definitely of spiders so I didn't look at them. Then the same member of staff came and let us (I say us, but it's Lee really) hold a bearded dragon. That was pretty cool although it was weird to touch! 

Outside we looked at the horses and donkeys and goats and fed them too. The shire horse was absolutely gorgeous, I really liked him. There was also a falconry centre but we didn't want to stick around so we went to the cafe for some lunch. 

The cafe was empty apart from us and two other people, so we went in and got lunch. It was given to us in a cardboard box and cardboard cups, all recyclable but one use items. I kind of get that because of the pandemic, but it does still feel quite wasteful. We got cake so I chose rainbow cake - it was moist and so delicious. The slice was huge so I took it with me to eat later. 

We went back to the cottage and, you guessed it, went swimming! It was honestly so lovely to have the pool to ourselves, we used it six days out of seven and I just loved it. 

That evening we got a curry takeaway from a village a few miles away. It had good ratings and most importantly it had good vegetarian choices. I chose a vegetarian thali, which is a bunch of little bits of different dishes and in restaurants is served in little metal pots all on a big tray. Mine came in all little containers and there was so much that there was easily enough for me to have leftovers the day after. I had chickpea and paneer curry, a mushroom curry, rice, a samosa, an onion bhaji, and I'm sure some other bits I've forgotten about. Lee's curry was nice too, I think he had chicken passanda. As I'm sure I've said before, he most often eats vegetarian at home with me, so he likes chicken sometime for a treat! 

Fried egg and veggie bacon sandwiches for breakfast

The chickens were flying all over between all the different pens which was pretty cute

Goats, so cute

Rabbits

These deer were really new so you couldn't get too close. They'd been rescued

Chickens

GUINEA PIGS

Look at the little piggy coming to eat her veggies!

Lee held this one

Me feeding some of the boys

So, so cute

Look at the horse

He was so beautiful and his back stood higher than the top of my head!

We fed him

Social distancing on the farm

Cheese toastie 

And rainbow cake!

What I Wore 28th September

I took a better photo of the dress I was wearing when we went to Stratford. There were two full length mirrors in the cottage's bedroom, one of which was facing the bed, which I didn't really like and which terrified me, ha. But I liked the other one, in the doorway. Useful for outfit photos!

I bought this dress at the beginning of the summer from Crazy Clearance. It's a J D Williams dress originally. It has a nice v neck and a circular back, and a hanky hem. I could wear this without leggings, and have done, but I put them on because it wasn't that warm of a day and I knew we'd be outside a lot.

I love the paisley pattern and the colours. There's orange and brown and yellow and pink and green, and I love the overall effect. I've had a lot of compliments on this dress which is great as it didn't cost me very much! 

I wore it with a black cotton shrug that I've had forever because the dress is sleeveless and I prefer to have something on my arms. 

Holiday in Warwickshire - Day 3

The Monday of our holiday was Shakespeare day! I've never been to Stratford upon Avon, where Shakespeare was from, although I've always wanted to go. So when I knew that's where we were going, I knew immediately I wanted to see some of the tourist stuff.

Thanks to Covid-19, only one of the Shakespeare locations is open currently, and that's his birthplace on Henley Street in the town centre. All five locations are owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and as tourist numbers are so down, they've decided to only open one location to keep costs down. It makes economic sense to me, but it's a shame because I wanted to see Anne Hathaway's cottage too! Oh well, we'll just have to go back in a couple of years or something and visit then!

We had to pre book our tickets, so we decided on 11 o'clock for our tour. They're not guided tours, so you can spend as long as you like there, within reason. We had breakfast in our cottage to start off with then set off. Thanks to reduced numbers we were able to park in a car park just at the end of Henley Street, which was perfect. We got into the visitors' centre at 11am, along with around six other people. They're obviously limiting numbers.

There's a bit about Shakespeare to begin with, including his family tree which I really liked, and then you go through into the garden. It's maintained beautifully. There's a really cool mural there too about all of Shakespeare's works, which I could have spent ages looking at. 

The house itself is so cool. You start off in what was Shakespeare's sister's house - just a simple one up one down. Then you go into the hall, where the family would've eaten. The end of the house is where John Shakespeare had his glove shop. It's really cool as he would have sold them out of the window, which I really liked the idea of. He had apprentices and they slept in the attic rooms.

Upstairs there's a room where lots of visiting people used to sign their names on the walls. These people include Charles Dickens and loads more people you'd have heard of! Most of the name got painted over, which is a shame. Then there's the room Shakespeare was actually born in! He was the oldest surviving child of his parents and had several siblings. 

The house was several things over the years, including an inn, before the Trust took it on in the mid 1800s, helped by Charles Dickens who wanted to help preserve this piece of history. I really liked seeing the whole thing, and all the staff were friendly and helpful. We went into the gift shop too and I bought presents for some friends and some postcards for myself. Everything was very spaced and safe within the whole site.

After this we went into a coffee shop for a drink. I had spiced chai! Now I am not a tea drinker at all, but I know that I do like spiced chai when it's really milky and delicious, so I ordered one. It was gorgeous! We went in a few shops buying souvenirs but then went to see Anne Hathaway's cottage.

It was obviously shut but we took photos outside, and then also went to Mary Arden's farm (that's Shakespeare's mum). It's also closed so again we just took photos. They were doing some work on it. We went back into Stratford to eat a picnic by the river. 

We went back to the cottage and again went swimming before a shower and pyjamas. Lee made pan haggerty for tea which I've blogged about before, it's a north east dish which has many variations but Lee makes his grandma's. She was from Northumberland and hers is just onions, potatoes, butter, and cheese. It's not difficult but it is quite labour intensive which is why Lee makes it on holiday when he has time to! We ate it with vegan sausage rolls. 

Finally, I took loads of crafting stuff with me on holiday so I could choose what to do. I made a granny square for the blanket I'm making for my cousin. 

This advert was on the side of one of the buildings in Stratford. There's a lot of cute stuff there as they're used to tourists

This map was really helpful. Where Shakespeare lived is no longer there, but there's a garden there now, on New Place

I liked this statue of a jester 

Just inside the exhibition

The family tree

These were the murals outside, I loved them

The back of the house

One of the windows on to the street

The room Shakespeare was actually born in!

People were shorter back then, as demonstrated by me standing in a doorway

The garden

This is on the path on the way out of the gift shop

Chai! And a hot chocolate for Lee

Statue of Shakespeare

I was waiting for Lee to come out of a shop and managed to get this shot of NO ONE in front of the house. How amazing is that? I bet you couldn't do this in peak times/pre-Covid

The back of Anne Hathaway's cottage

And the front. I really want to go back and go in 

Mary Arden's farm - to the right of this is a real Tudor farm that is still working, which I would also like to see

Pan haggerty

And my granny square in this gorgeous turquoise yarn!

Holiday in Warwickshire - Day 2

On the Sunday of our holiday we went to Warwick. We were only a few miles away and I knew it was a nice town, so we went along and parked right in the city centre. We went into a couple of shops, but most things were closed so we couldn't go far. We looked at a couple of places for lunch, but as I'm vegetarian it can be more difficult. We ended up at Dough & Brew and sat outside in the sunshine which was lovely.

I wanted the vegetarian breakfast but they didn't have any avocado which kind of made it pointless, so I changed my order to a pizza indtead. I also had a really good vanilla milkshakes. Lee had a chicken club sandwich which was the hugest sandwich either of us had ever seen. It was a nice lunch.

On our way back to the cottage we stopped at Hatton Locks to look at the canal. There's a nice walk up the locks there, and a cafe, but we didn't go far. There are 21 locks in all! There were a couple of narrowboats going through so we stood and watched them. I love canals and all the engineering involved. The process of highering or lowering the level of water to get a boat through is just mindboggling! 

We got back to the cottage and went swimming, then had a shower and got into our pyjamas before making veggie meatballs in a peppercorn sauce with pasta for tea. It's a cheat's Swedish meatballs, as the sauce came from a packet, but it was delicious and easy, which was perfect. 

I spent a lot of the week absolutely exhausted, because I just couldn't seem to sleep in the cottage bed at all. It didn't feel uncomfortable, but I just kept waking up and didn't sleep for very long at a time. Plus with a lot of swimming and walking, I kept saying I needed to come home for a rest! But Sunday was a nice relaxing day. We watched a film in the evening and I did some cross stitch. 

Oh, I did a bullet journal spread to write things down about the holiday. I'm not a traditional bullet journaller but I do love using stickers and making weekly to do lists. I love how this turned out - it looks fab.

How old is this parade of shops in Warwick?! I loved it

Vanilla milkshake

Lee

Me!

My pizza, I think it was goat's cheese and mushroom

Lee's massive sandwich

A boat coming down Hatton Locks, from the higher water to lower

You can see just how low the water was at the other side of this gate - the change needed was about twelve feet!

And this boat once it was through! 

Another boat coming up the locks - she had already been through about fifteen gates!

Manoeuvring through the narrow gate

Veggie meatballs with peppercorn sauce and pasta

Here's my lovely bujo layout!