Our three days in Wales passed far too quickly, but as we've found every step of the journey so far, there is more beauty and more good times to be had with each new place we go.
From Cardigan we drove all the way back across Wales and back into England—destination: the Cotswolds. The Cotswold region covers almost eight hundred square miles, of which we only glimpsed a scant few, covered by rolling green hills and the most Englishy of English villages. The buildings are cream-colored sandstone with dark thatched roofs, giving the impression that the towns are made of chocolate-frosted shortbread cookies. It was in one of these cookie towns that we were to meet up with our friend Kirsten, an Irish lass we met in a Dublin pub six years ago and have kept in touch with ever since.
We picked up Kirsty at a nearby train station and drove to The Churchill Arms in Chipping Campden. The pub was warm and inviting with its sandstone and dark wood interior, tapered candles, and booths made of church pews. We were shown to our rooms upstairs—just four rooms to let in the place—and dropped off our suitcases. I skittered around our room, squealing in delight and snapping pictures of every detail: the antique vanity, the wood-beamed ceiling, the dim wall lantern, the sandstone brick wall in the bathroom, the tiny jars of shower soaps. The preciousness was almost too much for my fragile heart to bear.
We met Kirsty back downstairs in the pub and had a scrumptious dinner—the Churchill is, after all, a 2011 Cotswold Life Food & Drink award winner. The location is a mile or so outside of the main Chipping Campden "thoroughfare," and its off-the-beaten-pathness meant there weren't many patrons other than us. They told us they would keep the bar open as long as we were spending enough money, though, so we kept the wine flowing until they called it at around 10:30 p.m. We spent the rest of the fabulous evening in Kirsty's room, talking and practicing our respective Irish and American accents. She evidently thinks we all sound like George W. Bush. I thank Thayer for having the foresight to take a video of her hilarious and terrible rendition of an American reading a Bulmers Cider bottle.
Also fascinating is that Kirsty attributes the Irish use of the word "like" to Americans! Trouble is, they use it all backwards. For example, as an American, I would say, "I was there for, like, twenty minutes." Contrarily, Kirsty would say, "I was there for twenty minutes-like." When I commented that I loved how she tacked "like" onto everything, she blamed us! "It's because I'm hanging out with you Americans; I don't normally do that," she said, to which I replied that she had vastly bastardized the American usage.
[finishing the bottle of wine]
Hayley [to Thayer]: Here, you can finish this.
Kirsty: Ah yes, it's your lot in life. Men must drink the manky drink and eat the manky food.
It was one night only, but it will go down in memory as of one of the best. The next morning we had our authentic English breakfasts and rushed Kirsty off to the train station so she could head to Coventry for her work conference on mathematical something something carbon capture something.
As for us, we headed northward for England's Lake District. On the way...
[We pass a sign for...]
Thayer: Cockermouth. Really?
Until next time!
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Cockermouth!
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