Stow-on-the-Wold

Since the sun was shining and I was feeling a bit cooped up in the house, we decided to explore the Cotswolds around us. We drove out to Stow-on-the-Wold, which is about a 40-minute drive northeast from our house.

The Cotswold Visitors Guide says about Stow-on-the-Wold: "In the north Cotswolds, all roads seem to lead to the hill-top town of Stow - the ancient Jurassic Way and the Salt Way met here and an Iron Age fort was built c.700 BC. The Roman Fosse Way from Cirencester to Leicester passes through Stow, although the town is mostly off to on side, reflecting its establishment as another of the planned market towns for which the Cotswolds is renowned. The town square is large and impressive (it has know markets with over 20,000 sheep crowded there), with various houses, shops and inns around the edge, all built in the local stone. The medieval cross is a reminder of the market's heyday - placed to encourage traders to do business fairly under the sight of God. Stow had a special importance in the English Civil War; it was close by, at Donnington, that the last battle was fought in March 1646. St Edward's Church in the town centre was used as a prison for the defeated Royalist troops. At nearly 800ft, Stow is the highest of the Cotswold towns. These days Stow is famous as a centre for the antiques trade."

Since we arrived at about lunchtime, we ate lunch in "The Old Bakery Tearoom", which is owned by a Christian family, not that we knew that until we sat down and read their testimony, which was printed in a leaflet at each table. We each had a sandwich (Jeff: bacon and Stilton; me: homemade Coronation chicken) and carrot, coriander and sweet potato soup.

After lunch we just perused the little shops around the village, mostly food shops, bakeries and gifts. We saw a fantastic looking caramel slice (Millionaire's bar), bought it and shared it while sitting on a bench in the town centre enjoying the sunshine.

The village centre

The cross that would remind the traders to trade fairly

Cute shops

About to enjoy the caramel square

Enjoying the caramel square and the sunshine

Since it was only 3pm when our parking ticket expired at Stow-on-the-Wold, we drove down the road about 10 minutes to Bourton-on-the-Water, which is known as the "Venice of the Cotswolds". We only stayed there an hour, just long enough to have a quick stroll through the village and have a cream tea (of course!).

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is just catching on in the UK; stores sell roses and boxes of chocolates and advertise for "Dinner for Two" meals, but it's really not a big holiday. That doesn't matter, though. Jeff and I had a simple Valentine's Day lunch at home yesterday. Jeff requested meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn for lunch. Plus, I made him a special treat... a Black Forest Cake.

Mittersill and Munich

Jeff and I got back from Germany on Friday evening, well technically Saturday morning at 2:30 after having sat in the airplane on the tarmac in Munich for 2 hours until the snow stopped falling. We enjoyed 6 days in Austria and 3 days in Munich. Our former church, MICC, was having its annual ski retreat in Mittersill, Austria from Thursday, January 21 through Sunday, January 24, and we decided to join them!

The view of Mittersill from the Schloβ
Schloβ Mittersill
Schloβ Mittersill

On Thursday, Jeff and I flew from Birmingham to Munich, where we met up with David and Sharon Palmer in the luggage claim. The 4 of us picked up the hire car, made a quick trip up to Manching, then drove 3 hours to Schloβ Mittersill. There was only a small group of friends there that evening, but that made it possible to catch up with them before the bigger group arrived the following evening.

On Friday, Jeff and David hit the slopes with a few others. Sharon and I hung out most of the day with other friends who weren't skiing (however, they were brave enough to have lessons on Saturday). Our group walked went straight for the recommended café and had coffee. Sharon and I had our much anticipated Latte Macchiatos. A few others had a hot chocolate which I then made sure to go back for on Saturday. Afterward, we walked around the town a bit, threw a few snow balls, looked inside a church, then decided it was time for lunch. We then returned to the Schloβ and later I picked up Jeff, David and Brian from skiing.

Group at the café: Sharon, Tabitha, Emma, David, Arthur and Jeffry (from left).

Glenn, David, Jeff and Brian

On Saturday, the Hendersons and Donnachies came down for the day. We were so glad to have the chance to see them. While David and Jeff and the others were off skiing, another group of us went down into town again and... guess what... ate lunch and went to the café. This time I had the delicious hot chocolate.

Delicious hot chocolate: warm, frothed milk with dark chocolate to stir in and whipped cream to grace the top.

Steve pouring his Weiβbier

Robin, Betsy and Bron at lunch
Ewan and Masha Donnachie at lunch

Saturday afternoon, the non-skiers went on a sleigh ride! It was heaps of fun. The 9 of us crammed into a sleigh and were pulled around for about 50 minutes. Since Bron was on the sleigh next to me, we sang numerous songs together. Did anyone else mind? Well, I don't think so. They should know us by now that if the two of us are together, there will be singing. I think they would have been more concerned if we were just sitting there admiring the view.

Bron and me before the sleigh ride.

Piling into the sleigh.

Steve and Robin Henderson

Bron and me having a great time on the sleigh

View from the sleigh.

Saturday evening Jeff, a.k.a. "The Quiz Master", headed the group (about 45 people) in a quiz he put together. He does this every year at the ski retreat, but this was the first time I got to experience this "fun" evening. The large group divided into 5 groups and answered 60 questions about the Bible, America, science and general knowledge. The funny thing is, I've not really seen my husband act this way before... very strictly! "If they've only put one name down, NO POINTS!" "If there are more than two answers written down, NO POINTS!" "If the answer is incomplete, NO POINTS!" Very harsh. It was quite funny how many people took it so seriously.

Sunday most people headed back to Munich, but we stayed in Austria until Tuesday. Sharon and I dropped off Jeff and David to go skiing and then continued up the road to St. Johann. Our task was to find a pension (B&B) to stay at for a couple nights. We asked the lady in the Information office to find us a couple of rooms, which she did, then "exhausted" we went straight to the café across the street to have a slice of cake and a latte macchiato... does it really matter that it was only 10:45? After a long sit in the café, we drove to the pension, unloaded the car and pet their cute kitty. Just the "usual" the rest of the day: picked up David and Jeff from Scheffau (SkiWelt) and went to dinner at a pizzeria in St. Johann.

View from our room at the pension.
(Jeff's not mad at all, though he looks like it in the picture!)

Monday, again the boys went skiing, but this time in St. Johann. Sharon and I drove an hour to Zell am See. As we were driving there, we saw hot air balloons rising above the peaks of the mountains. There were so many! We were able to get a great view of them from the lake. Of course, though this was closely followed by a trip to a café for a latte macchiato and a Krapfen. After a perusal around a large gift shop, we headed to the south part of the city, ate a quick lunch, and drove back to pick up our husbands.

View of Zell am See

Tuesday, Jeff and David skied at Scheffau again. It had snowed quite heavily during the night, so they were quite excited about "fresh powder". Sharon and I had our morning coffee then took a nice walk around the village for about an hour. For lunch, Sharon and I ate soup and a Germknodel - a large steamed dumpling topped with ground poppy seeds and sugar, and served with melted butter - it's a very typical Alpine "delicacy".

Germknodel

Around 2:00pm, Jeff and David said "buh, bye" to the slopes, and the four of us headed up the road to Munich. After David and Sharon checked into their hotel, we drove up to Neufahrn, just north of Munich, to Dan and Iara Pinkney's home, where Jeff and I stayed. We caught up with them for a couple of hours, then met with Brian and Karen Bland at an Indian Restaurant nearby. Brian is recovering well after a heart attack he suffered in September.

On Wednesday, we drove into Munich and met Kari Jones at Woerner's Cafe at Marienplatz. We enjoyed yummy hot chocolate and cake there, then went on a walk to Odeonsplatz and through the Hof Garten. It was sooo cold that day! As we were walking around, my face got so cold that it was hard for me to talk... imagine that!


That evening we joined our former small group at Thomas and Angelika Berber's home. It was nice to get to put names (from the prayer request emails) to faces as well as spend a little more time with friends.

Thursday, Jeff and I drove to Olching, just west of Munich, to visit the Bolme family - Erik, Amanda, Kai (3 yrs. old) and Josiah (6 months old). Kai loved the Cars activity magazine we brought him from England. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon with them talking and playing Candy Land and Jenga.


Thursday evening, we met up with friends at Vapiano near Marienplatz. This was the first chance I had to see Sarah Robinson again, since she was unable to make it to the ski retreat. Also, David Hepler, Sarah and I celebrated our 6-year anniversary - we met 6 years ago almost to the day and became instant friends.
Friday, we packed up the car and drove over to the Sanday's home, just a few streets over from the Pinkney's, to see Michelle and Oliver Sanday. Paul, Jeff's former colleague, was at work, though. Again, it was really nice to catch up and see Oliver so grown up... he can feed himself!


Our time at the ski retreat and in Munich was very nice, but I'm glad to be living in England now. Jeff wouldn't mind having been able to live in Munich longer though, but he says he's happy living anywhere.

Monte Cristo

I love, love, love salty-sweet combinations. If you know me well enough, you'll know that my favo(u)rite candy are chocolate-covered pretzels. Monte Cristo sandwiches are along the same line; they're a ham and cheese stuffed french toast served with jam...very filling! I fixed one for lunch today, but I'm sure it would be equally good for breakfast.


For one Monte Cristo, you'll need:

2 slices of white bread
3 slices of thinly sliced deli ham
1-2 slices of cheese, any cheese will do, but I used cheddar.
1 egg
a splash of milk
a bit of butter
powdered sugar for dusting
strawberry or raspberry jam for dunking

1. Beat an egg in a wide bowl (to fit a slice of bread in) and add a splash of milk to thin it out a bit. Beat together.
2. Soak the slices of bread in this mixture while the butter melts in the pan.
3. Once the pan is hot and butter is melted, add one slice of eggy bread to the pan. Let it cook for a minute, then flip the bread over. Remove this slice from the pan.
4. Add a bit more butter to the pan and cook the second slice of bread the same way.
5. Once both sides are cooked, top the slice of bread that's in the pan with the cheese and ham, then top with the first slice of bread. This should look like a sandwich now.
6. Flip the whole sandwich so the first slice of bread reheats. Cook until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted.
7. Dust the sandwich with powdered sugar. Serve with the jam.

Enjoy!

Our New House

Due to many requests for pictures, I finally took some today and am sharing them with you. Our house is part of a development in Quedgeley called Kingsway, just south of Gloucester. Our 3-story house is on the end of a line of other houses. In the States, this would be like a townhouse. Next to it is our garage, which is accessed from the back of the house.

**Warning! The house isn't decorated or organized yet. Just bear this in mind while looking through the pictures.

When you enter the house, the stair case is directly in front of you and the hall leads to the lounge, kitchen and back garden.

Our kitchen is quite small, but there is much room for improvement! We plan to makeover the kitchen either by adding more cabinets or by ripping the whole thing out and starting from scratch. This, however, may have to wait until next year.

This is the lounge/family room. As you can see, it's quite small, but we're thinking of adding a small conservatory/sun room to the back to enlarge the space a bit. Again, though, this will have to wait. For the time being, our dining table is stuck in the corner to the right of the picture. No, there's no where else to put it, not even in the kitchen, hence the reason for wanting a conservatory.
The garden/backyard... again, very tiny, but at least there's enough space to have a go at gardening come Spring. There's a gate to the right (not shown) that leads to the garage and our parking spot. The patio is large enough for a grill, which we're glad about.

The half bath, or "cloak room" as it's called here, situated under the stairs. Jeff put up the towel bar and toilet paper/loo roll holder just this weekend! We still need to put up a small mirror over the sink.

That's all on the ground floor... now up the first flight of stairs... there is a large guest bed room, but it is so cluttered and unorganized that I decided not to take a picture. Basically, it looks like our master bed room (below). Both the guest room and the master bed room are located at the back of the house.

This is the full/family bathroom on the first floor. The cabinet sitting next to the tub is still waiting to be put up.Next to this bathroom is the smallest of the rooms, which we use as our office, and is located at the front of the house.

View from the window by the stairs. You can see it's still a building site across the street.
Now up the second flight of stairs to the master bedroom. You can see the lovely sliding glass doors to the built-in closet. Perhaps we'll get rid of this in the future, too. Yeah, there are still boxes stacked in the corner, and I have no idea what's in them! Oh, yeah, and our new bed... seriously a fantastic purchase!
This is our en-suite/master bathroom. The mirror, glass shelf and loo roll holder (not shown) were also put up on Saturday.
Across the hall from the master is the third bedroom, which currently serves as a drying room for our laundry. However, the couch pulls out to a double-bed, so we can have even more guests, of course minus the drying racks. Oh, and the hot water tank is in a closet in this room, though you can't see it in the picture.
That's a tour of the house! I kind of felt like I was on MTV Cribs... but minus the mansion, the cars and all the bling... you also didn't get a peak inside our fridge... so sorry.