We arrived back at the Wood Norton (after our little spin around the Cotswolds in that amazing Morgan) a tad too early for dinner and decided to head to the bar for a bit of light pre-dinner refreshment i.e. cocktails.

The Espresso Martini is quite famous here and after a little (i.e. no) persuasion, I plumped for one (Lloyd went for a glass of red).

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (42)
*Totally glad I did – might be the hunger speaking but that stuff is delicious!

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (43)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (44)

Dinner was a five-course meal starting with an amuse bouche (those words still have the power to send me into fits of child-like giggling)…

Drinks of course had to be bubbles. Okay, fine it didn’t have to be but between the stately home and that vintage car, there was no way anything else would do for that night.
Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (47)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (48)

We then moved on to pate (for Lloyd) and pigeon for me (first time I’ve ever had and it was pretty good actually).
Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (49)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (50)

A sorbet made it way to the table shortly after to cleanse our palates…

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (51)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (52)

…followed by my favourite part of the meal (yes, even more so than dessert 🙂 ), the lamb! *licks lips*
Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (53)

Lloyd went for the rabbit (which he really enjoyed – first time for him too, come to think of it).

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (54)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (55)

Dessert came in the form of Crème Brulee (no surprises here, right – I’m slowly starting to realise I may have a Crème Brulee addiction).

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (56)

Knackered after having an early start in London, I trudged off to bed, looking forward to seeing what the Cotswolds held tomorrow.

The following morning, it was pretty clear what the Cotswolds held – rain, rain and more rain!

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (1)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (3)

No Brit worth their salt will let a little thing like rain scupper their plans so after a rather fantastic breakfast (one of the best I’d had in a while), we hopped into the card and went off in search of beautiful English towns and villages.

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (2)

We started off with Bourton-on-the-Water (quite an apt name for the day we were having, amirite?) and honestly, it seemed like the skies opened even wider with the rain coming in thick and fast.

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (4)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (5)

Umbrellas at the ready, we wandered around this cute little village for a little while before thinking “Sod it, I need cake!”.
Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (6)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (9)

Luckily, in Bourton-on-the-Water (Can I just call it BOTW – it’s just such a long name…) there’s no shortage of tea houses and before long, we were tucking into delicious teas and freshly baked scones with jam and clotted cream!

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Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (12)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (13)

Re-energised (and with the rain having gone down a tad), we headed out to see more of this beautiful, albeit wet, little place. Let me show you around…

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Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (15)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (16)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (17)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (21)

Eventually, we said farewell to BOTW and headed off to another beautiful town in the Cotswolds, with an equally long name Stow-On-The-Wold (which I am now going to refer to as SOTW 🙂 ).

We start off at the the famous century-old Huffkins bakery and tea rooms but had to exercise all restraint against going in (we’d only just had tea after all) and proceeded to just meander our way through the town.

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (22)

Again, allow me the pleasure of showing you around (*or at least of showing you around before I got fed up of the rain).

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Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (24)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (25)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (37)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (31)

It’s such a cute little place isn’t it? It’s the epitome of the Cotswolds and quite a charming town (I can imagine it would have been even more charming if the sun was out).

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (34)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (38)

By this point, we’d been out doing nothing but wandering the Cotswolds and popping into bookstores, vintage markets and pretty much anywhere that was indoors that we decided to call it quits and head back to The Wood Norton – there were cocktails to be tried there after all and what’s the point of staying somewhere amazing if you don’t actually get to enjoy it? 😉

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (39)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (40)

Rainy Days In The English Countryside... The Wood Norton, Bourton-On-The-Water, Broadway, Cotswolds, Stow-on-the-wold (41)

14 Best Places In The Cotswolds You Should Visit


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