The wife was determined not to go to North Devon, so to ensure we went somewhere different, she booked Japonica Cottage in Bourton-on-the-Water, Cotswolds. I've never been in that part of the country, let alone considered going there, so to be fair, it was a bit of an adventure for both of us. We actually live not far from where we stayed. The trip down, according to Google Maps, was around an hour and a half, although you could do it a lot quicker if you're willing to take the risk. Not that I did, obviously. 👮♂️🚔📸
The booking was a bit weird, tbh. Supposedly, we couldn't collect the keys until after 6 pm. On the one hand, that's a bit annoying when you consider you pay per night, so technically you need to drag your cases around with you for the day, effectively killing time until you can dump all your stuff off.
We arrived just after midday and headed through the town, taking note of the cottage's location as we passed it and made our way to the large (COOP) carpark. Parking is, as you can imagine, a hot potato in the town. There are parking bays near the cottage with a thirty-minute limit, but as some of the locals warn you, traffic wardens are constantly on the prowl. We saw one entitled guy who thought it was OK to dump his car in a disabled bay. He was in a shop, we were in and moaning to the owner: "How am I supposed to visit things if I can't park?" I thought to myself:
🧠 "By parking in the main carpark and walking, you lazy........"
As you can imagine, there are lots of places to eat in Bourton, especially little cafe-type places that do cakes and tea.
After a good look around (The wife took far more pictures than I did), the missus decided we should try to get into the cottage, so we collected the car and drove back.
The cottage is next door to an estate agent's with an entrance between the two buildings that leads to a small garden with a three bay garage-come-shed for parking. To say the entrance between the buildings is narrow is an understatement! Both the Estate Agents and the cottage walls have evidence of impact damage where people have clouted the buildings with their vehicles trying to enter the narrow drive.
The keys to the cottage are in a key safe that's located in what they call "The washroom" Basically, it's a very small brick-built shed with one of those button-code door locks. The instructions the wife had were to enter a code to gain access to the washroom and then, via the tumbler lock, enter the code for the keysafe, turning the handle anticlockwise. She entered the code, turned the handle. NOPE, we can't get in. Try again. Still can't get in. I tried. Can't get in. "Maybe it's on a timer lock?" I said. "Don't forget, we're not supposed to get in until 6 pm." I could see the wife was getting a tad annoyed, so I suggested leaving the car where it was and going for something to eat.
The wife found a lovely pub called The Duke of Wellington that had a tributary running past it into the main stream that runs through the town. There's something about eating next to fast-running water.
We headed back to the cottage, the wife tried, I tried, but we still couldn't get into the washroom. "I'll have to ring them." the wife said. This was going to be fun. Fortunately, the owner's number was in the rental details.
Wife: "Hi, we're having problems getting into the washroom. It looks like it's accepting the code and the knob turns, but it just won't open."
Owner: "Ooh, I'll have to get hold of the wife as she owns the property, I'll ring you back."
While she was still on the phone, I decided to have one more try. I turned the knob clockwise, but nothing happened. Put the code in again, turned the knob anti-clockwise out of curiosity and bingo! We're in!
Wife: "You're kidding? It's OK now, we've opened the door."
Owner: "Oh, good. Bye."
I entered the washroom, entered the code "Guess what? The knob won't turn anti-clockwise like it says in the instructions." I said. Turned it clockwise, TaDa! It opens, and we're in!
We entered via the conservatory. Dumping our bags and stuff on the floor, we opened the back door to be floored by a blast of heat "OMG! That's hot!" The wife exclaimed, and so the hunt was on for the thermostat. Could we find it? No. This time I phoned the owner.
Me: "Hi, can you tell me where the thermostat is, please? It's like a hundred and fifty degrees in here!"
Owner: "Ooh, I'll have to get hold of the wife as she owns the property, I'll ring you back."
What? You said that last time?
After a short while, he called back. "It's by the door between the kitchen and the front room." I swear to god it was the smallest thermostat in Christendom. The piece of wall it was on was about three inches wide; we must have walked past it ten times, I kid you not.
Spiral staircases like you get in castles are far safer than the stairs in the cottage. All of the following images somehow make them look bigger than they actually were. The wife was so scared of them, then she went up on all fours!
And as for the bit of rope as a quasi bannister, that made it even more dangerous as far as we were concerned.
I cracked my head four times over the course of our stay on that door frame.
The poor dog was just as terrified as we were. You try explaining to an animal: "It's OK, mate, stay on the right and you'll be safe."
To make it even more interesting, there was a second level with another bedroom! If you look at the right side of the photo, there's a gate to put across the doorway to stop you from falling down in the night.
There was one other endearing feature to the location. About 100 yards from the property was St Lawrence's church, which had a clock tower and merrily bonged out the hours, and every fifteen minutes plus chimed the quarter hours too! I particularly liked it at 6 am when it went into full alarm clock mode and after bonging six times launched into what can only be described as the full range of bells in the tower competing with each other for space in people's eardrums.
[Stay tuned, more to follow]
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