Chedworth Roman villa - 2 July

This morning it rained! We've been lugging rain jackets around for three weeks now, and today we finally got to use them. Ellie was quite put out that we were still going to go out... she wanted to stay home and play and couldn't grasp the concept that we were still going to go out somewhere, even though it was raining. I told her that people in England don't stay home because of the rain! So we got jackets on and ventured out, to Chedworth Roman Villa.

It was another gorgeous drive through gorgeous yellow stone Cotswold villages. If I could have a house in the Cotswolds I don't think I would have come home!

The villa was great. It was only discovered in the 1870s, and it has the longest continuous stretch of mosaic floor in the UK. There's another stretch which hasn't been excavated yet, which is potentially the longest stretch of mosaic in Europe. It's just sitting there under the grass waiting for the funding to be dug up. Isn't that bonkers? We're going back, at some future point, to see it!

Fortunately for us the rain stopped pretty soon after we arrived, because most of it was outdoors. Nicholas and Amelia were totally uninterested in Romans and just wanted to climb on walls. One cool thing, though... the Romans ate a specific breed of snail, which they force fed on milk and honey. The descendants of these snails still live in the couple of miles around the villa - they are an endangered and protected species, and Nicholas and Amelia found one! It was seriously the biggest snail I have ever seen! 

5th grade Ancient Civilisation projects here we come!

On the way home, we stopped at the motorway services, of all places, and bought cheese. These services looked like the Harrods food hall, not a motorway services at all! They had a full cheese counter, so Jeff bought double Gloucester and single Gloucester so that we could taste test the difference between them. You can only buy single Gloucester in Gloucester itself, so it had to be done! I found my new favourite cheese... a little creamy number called Stinking Bishop. How can you not buy a cheese called Stinking Bishop? So I did. And yes, it did stink a bit. But it was delicious! I'm waiting for Costco to stock it....