Why are all of these villages so pretty?

Damn that Fried Bread is good! We had a full house in the dining room this morning and it was nice to chat with all the other guests over breakfast. The other Americans staying here were going to Stratford-on-Avon to do the Shakespeare thing, and the couple from Essex (who were visiting the Costwolds for the first time) were going to do like us and just go whereever their car took them.

Our first stop this morning was another National Trust property called "Hidcote Manor Garden." The garden was huge and segmented off in various themed "rooms" based on the flora planted in them. Thankfully we got there before the crush of people. Before we knew it, it was almost noon and we headed out towards Bourton-on-the-Water for lunch and more cute golden stone buildings and creeping rose bushes.

We enjoyed a couple sandwiches along the "-on-the-Water" part of Bourton with apparently the rest of the entire county of Gloucestershire. It was cute; with kids playing in the little stream throwing rocks at the ducks and whatnot. Ice cream was the treat du jour, with no less than 10 ice cream parlors along the High Street.

We went onward to the very small town of Bibury. Man, this was the quaintest little town we'd seen so far. And you know what? That same busload of asian artists that we saw yesterday in "The Slaughters" was there with their little stools and sketch pads and watercolors. Bibury is evidently a popular spot, since there were cars parked everywhere. We discovered that there is a rather large trout farm and there were tons of people fishing in the trout ponds. One guy was fishing downstream of the trout farm and caught a fairly good size fish. One woman asked why he didn't throw it back, and he politely said "because I'm going to eat it." Not unlike most every other Cotswold village, there isn't much more to Bibury than just the cuteness of the cottages, so once we took another hundred or so photos of the creeping rose bushes, we headed out towards Burford.

Burford was the furthest point we got from Nineveh; which is to say it was only like 35 miles away. It was also probably one of the larger villages/towns we visited. While we were enjoying our afternoon tea and scones (OK, Angela had the tea and scones and I had a really good strawberry sundae), we came to the conclusion that we really wanted to get that painting we saw in Winchecomb yesterday. We hopped back in the car and made a mad dash for the gallery, but got there just a couple minutes after closing time. Angela had the bright idea of asking one of the neighboring shop-owners if he had a cell number for the gallery owner. One of them took my mobile number and said that he would try to get a hold of him. Maybe he'll call and agree to open his shop tomorrow. Who knows?

Anyway, feeling a little dejected that we might have missed out on the painting, we headed back to Nineveh for a glass of wine before dinner. The sheep behind the hotel were baying very loudly today. They won't come very close to the fence, but they do all look up when you try to "talk" to them. It's amazing the different number of voices they have.

We had a really nice dinner back in Mickelton; and actually ran into the couple from Essex.

We head back to the states tomorrow. We're going to try to see Blenheim Palace since it's right on the way back to Heathrow. Our flight's not until 3pm, so we have a little time in the morning.