West Country news (1)

Happy to say Jo's a lot better than she was when I last posted just over a week ago. She's still not completely out of the woods yet - although the initial infection seems to have gone, she's now developed a persistent cough, but she certainly feels a whole lot better. Jo finished her course of antibiotics on Friday night and managed a couple of glasses of wine and a few beers on Saturday/Sunday before we came home on Monday.

The travel was very easy - Flybe from Aberdeen to Birmingham - very civilised times - and then we picked up a hire car and made the short journey to Stratford-(up)on-Avon in a dinky little Fiat 500 - the same model as we drove in France last year:

Perfect for the two of us - very frugal - we didn't even have to put fuel in it - but it's foot to the floor when going uphill!

When we arrived in Stratford, we had some difficulty getting to our hotel as the MOP Fair (https://www.stratford.gov.uk/leisure/the-mop-fair.cfm) was on. It took over all the streets in the centre of town and there was a large carousel right outside our hotel. Eventually we found a way to the car park at the rear, only to discover that there was no private parking - only public at £14 per day.

The hotel itself was lovely - old, but a tasteful update when Fuller's took it over 4 years ago. We checked in then did a short recce round the town, posing in front of the Shakespearean characters before taking a short walk along the banks of the Avon:

Hamlet

Falstaff

We had dinner that evening in our hotel:

So that was Wednesday. More to follow.