Lara collected us from the Riverside Caravan site near Stratford upon Avon and took us to the cottage where she is staying at Clifford Chambers just a few miles down the road. She is there until the end of October having won this bursary for women writers for time to write.

It was a very quaint one up, one down cottage in a pretty village. The bath was in the bedroom up the rickety stairs, which gave us a laugh. Behind the cottage was a tiny courtyard with just enough room, for a small round table and two chairs, to be able to take tea outside.

We walked down a little lane between the cottages to a further extension garden belonging to the property and the hen house and run.  The hens are rescue hens and not up to giving much in the way of eggs just yet. Even though the cockerel makes enough noise he seems to be all noise and no oomph!

From there we continued down to the riverside on our short country walk.  Yes, it was peaceful and quiet and conducive to getting down to work without interruptions, except when parents come to call.

Lara was taking some time off to take us around the local villages where she has been looking at properties as she is keen to rent a property here from December.

We stopped off at Honeycote Farm which specialises in chilly peppers and herbs.  Some of the chilly peppers are so hot that they have to be handled with gloves on as the skin on our hands can blister.  Certainly not for me, I don’t like chilly peppers even when they are weak.  Bernard and I chose quite a lot of herbs to buy including a creeping sage, grapefruit mint and a chocolate mint. Some of the herbs were finished for the winter and in fact the farm closes from the end of October until the end of April. There were herbs there I had never heard of and those that I already had.

Whilst driving along, a flock, if that’s the name for it, of pheasants were strutting along the middle of the road. Not a care in the world, they continued right in front of the car, obviously having an afternoon ramble. Lara slowed the car to a crawl, expecting them to fly away, but no, they continued on ignoring this lump of metal on wheels behind them.  It was not until Lara tooted that they flew off with much indignation. After all they were there first.

Our last stop was Stow on the Wold where we stopped for tea after having a leisurely walk around this bustling little town. We had been to Stow before but many years ago.

The countryside around has some very beautiful picture postcard villages and it is easy to understand why Lara wants to try living in this neck of the woods. She wants to rent for a couple of years to see how much she likes it, having always been a city girl.