Mum and John arrived in London last night after being in Paris and travelling via Lille to catch up with my friend Marie and her Father Kaci. Unfortunately Marie's mother couldn't join them because her mother is very sick in hospital but they had a lovely lunch and walk around the centre of Lille so it was well worth the stop over. This is the family that Andrew and I holidayed with in the South of France in August which was only a couple of weeks after we arrived in London.

Andrew and I finished work and made our way home last night not knowing the exact time Mum and John would arrive but it turned out perfectly. As soon as I hopped of the tube I had a txt message from John saying that they were at 'The Grove' which is our local pub and is literally 5 minutes walk away if that. So Andrew and I met at Hammersmith and made our way to meet them there to have a drink before heading home. Berlin now feels so long ago because they have done so much and it has been a busy work for us at work so we had heaps to catch up on and it is just so great to see them again.

We had a lovely evening chilling out at home and decided to order Thai takeaways which was ideal because we all didn't really feel like going out and we wanted to have a fairly early night. Andrew and I had gone out on Thursday night and bought a good air bed and bedding etc and it sounds like they were pretty comfortable which is good.

John had arranged to pick up a rental car this morning from Fulham Broadway so the boys got up at 7.30am to go and collect it. We were off to the Cotswolds for the weekend! Mum and I got up shortly after they left and got ourselves organised and when they returned we had some breckie together before hitting the road.

Unfortunately the weather was pretty miserable and has been all day but we have still managed to have a fabulous time. It took us about an hour and half to get to the first village in the Cotswolds which seemed to fly by very quickly. My eyes were out on stalks at the beautiful little places we passed through which have so much character and history. Our first stop was Stow which was buzzing with people and there was all sorts of gorgeous wee shops to explore. We had some lunch here at a lovely traditional pub called ?. Yummy food! We wandered around after this and Mum and I discovered some fantastic op-shops where we ended up picking up some real bargains. We had heaps of fun but Andrew and John were clearly not as excited as we were.

From here we drove on and ended up in Cirencester which was another stunning wee village. Mum and I spotted a craft market so Johnny quickly found a park and we went to check it out. Mum and I were still at the first stall when Andrew and John came back to us and said they'd seen it all! Boys are hopeless! We told them to meet us in half an hour so we could take our time and enjoy the works of such talented people. We were especially impressed by a lady who makes tea cosies, cushions and other things out of old tweed fabrics. Her tea cosies are incredibly artistic and it appears she is well known for these in the region and even the World. Her website ishttp://www.cleverelsie.co.uk/ and is well worth taking a look.

It was now getting fairly dark and it was still raining so we decided to make our way to the Accomodation we had booked which is in Nailsworth. We didn't have too much trouble finding it thanks to Carmen our amazing GPS. Se has been so good to us this trip! We are staying at the Egypt Mill Hotel and it is just superb! Once we had unloaded the car and freshened up we decided to go and have a drink at the hotel bar and we were thinking we would eat at their restaurant but unfortunately they were completely booked out. Although this was disappointing we were recommended to go to 'The Britania Inn' which was only 5 minutes drive away. We couldn't have asked for a nicer meal and once again the atmosphere was warm and inviting. There was a big open fire going and the service was top notch! We are so lucky to be visiting such special places with such special company! Who would ask for anything more!