Bourton-on-the-Water

So day 2 of the holiday to the Cotswolds we decided to take a trip to see Bourton-on-the-Water, recommended to us by the locals in the Red Lion (and I quote - "Come rain or shine that place is always full of visitors" - meaning there had to be *something* worth seeing there)...it was only a short drive (maybe fifteen minutes) from where we were staying too, leaving us little in the way of excuses... ;)

We parked the car in the enormous out of town car park (obviously designed to accommodate huge numbers of summer visitors) and walked the short way into
town (after wasting about five 20p pieces struggling (eventually successfully) to pump up a slightly deflated pram wheel at the petrol station) -


- and actually it was lovely, the whole high street was dissected by a fast flowing, but very shallow river, criss-crossed by many tiny bridges -

- the lazy ducks, who had to swim extremely fast in order to just stay in one place -

- were observed to actually climb out of the water and waddle (rather than struggle against the current) when they wanted to get back up-stream...

There were a couple of things (other than the numerous gift shops) worth a look at in town - the motoring museum (home of "Brum", apparently) -

- and the model village (neither of which we fancied tackling with the pram, so we'll catch them next time we visit)...

We did poke around the Christmas shop (bought a couple of nice baubles), and noted with amusement the recently discovered signs that were to have been put up around the country in the event of a successful German invasion circa World War II -

- and festive corruptions thereof -

We also popped into a little jewellers shop to buy Flyingpops a silver charm (a bit of a tradition for our breaks now) and somehow she ended up trying on a £20,000 diamond ring(!) -

- not at all what we expected from our day when we got up that morning! At lunchtime we stopped in a little cafe where Flyingpops had a cream tea -

- (because she could) and I had a BLT -

- with hot bacon (which surprised me for some reason)...so a lovely little village, but our next visit should probably be in the summer, so I can paddle in the river... ;)