© Richard Randall

WILTSHIRE , Malmesbury

Malmesbury in Wiltshire is another of our favourite places, it is a small very friendly place, with a selection of little shops and some good pubs and restaurants. Rather than make a day trip of it we often used to stay for a night or two at the wonderful Old Bell Hotel, which is a beautiful heritage property full of character with a lovely walled garden. There are log fires, stone walls and period furniture which all complete the feel of the place. Said to be Englands oldest purpose built hotel, it sits adjacent to the famous Abbey in Malmesbury, which is on the edge of the Cotswolds, the whole region is absolutely gorgeous. At the Old Bell Hotel you can enjoy a drink in the bar and dine in elegant Edwardian splendour in the award winning (2 rosettes from the AA) restaurant which serves English cuisine, there is also an excellent, extensive wine list. Or you can indulge in a delicious cream tea served in the lounges or the library. The cream tea is very popular with non-guests as well as guests of the hotel. Built in 1220 the Old Bell Hotel has a quintessentially English feel, and offers a pleasing atmosphere, comfortable surroundings and fantastic hospitality nearly 800 hundred years later. The hotel provides luxury in sophisticated surroundings whilst retaining the ambience of a time long forgotten. All of the bedrooms, of which there are only about thirty, are furnished in individual styles with antique furnishings and paintings which makes a refreshing change from the bland interiors of the large well known chain hotels.

GLASTONBURY, SOMERSET

Glastonbury festival run by Somerset farmer Michael Eavis has been held at Worthy Farm, Pilton since 1970, and is the mother of all festivals! This festival normally takes place on the last full weekend of June, every now and then it takes a year off to enable the land; as it is a working farm, and the local people a chance to recover. It is the U.K's largest music festival, and more, it's unique. The site of the festival is 700 acres in a beautiful valley in Somerset. It is massive, approximately a mile and a half across with a perimeter fence of about 8 1/2 miles. Everything is laid on within this fenced area both the camping and the entertainment so you don't have to queue up to enter each day like you do at some other festivals. Don't expect only to be entertained, there is so much to do, so just throw yourself into as much as you can, and try and check out at least one show at each of the venues. There are 100,000 paying ticket holders and around 35,000 staff members and performers. We were there in 1997, which was a particularly cold, wet and muddy year. There were a large number of non ticket holders who decided to climb over the fence and get in for free, thousands of them I'd say, judging by the number that fell on our tent in a few short hours late on the first night! We spent a great deal of the days huddled up in our car with the heater on full blast, drinking wine and trying to keep warm, I know alcohol lowers body temperature! In fact we used practically a whole tank of petrol in a bid to stay warm, before deciding that we had better leave just enough for us to get out when we left the festival. Although a lot of the people there were enjoying rolling around in the mud, we were obviously already beginning to feel way too old for such shenanigans! Quite a few fans left early on the second morning, and they had to pay £5 to get their cars pulled out of the mud by a very profitable young man and his tractor! Can't quite remember who was playing the year we went, and I am not sure if that's down to old age or the copious amounts of red wine we were drinking! As well as the music there are over 700 stalls in the markets who sell clothes, crafts, food etc. The festival also raises money for good causes, the three main ones are Wateraid, Oxfam and Greenpeace, so Glastonbury festival has a conscience as well as being great fun for everyone. I doubt if we will ever go again now that we no longer live in the U.K. But if we do I think we will be 'camping', not in a tent like before but in a camper van with the other sensible people, well I did say we are getting old!

READING, BERKSHIRE

Another music festival we love is Reading festival. Apparently the oldest U.K. music festival it started in 1960 where there was a national jazz and blues festival. In 1989 the Mean Fiddler took over the fading festival and changed it's image by bringing in more popular bands to lead it into the future. In the 1990's everything changed again with the appearance of grunge bands, in fact this is where Nirvana first appeared in the U.K. Reading Festival is usually held on the last bank holiday weekend in August, so you get 3 fab filled days of music. You can buy weekend tickets which most people do, or you can just go for any one day. There are about 50,000 people at Reading each day, so it is a much more intimate affair than Glatonbury! The difference between Glastonbury and Reading Festivals is that in Glastonbury you are almost stranded on the farm but with Reading the actual town is so close that you can easily walk there in about 10/15 minutes, and stock up on booze from the supermarket and visit pubs to make use of their lovely clean toilets and have a wash! On one of the days we were there we went into town and had lunch at a river side hotel, the ladies toilets was full of young women leaning over the sinks washing their hair and then drying it under the electric hand driers! It's a messy business this festival lark!

GOODWOOD, WEST SUSSEX

Another great day out is the Goodwood Festival of Speed which any car enthusiast will love. It is a hill climb in front of Goodwood House, with people racing priceless classic cars and motorcycles along with more modern super cars. Lots of celebrities bring their cars along and join in too. The beauty of the event is that all of the cars are on display to the public, so you can get up close and personal with them and have a really good look, take photos and sometimes chat to the owners. There are also static displays of classic racing cars from various era's, each year a different manufacturer is represented with priceless examples of cars from a bygone age being shipped in from all over the world by motor heritage museums. We were lucky enough one year to each have a ride in a modern super car on the hill climb. Richard had his ride in a gorgeous mauve Lamborghini and I was in a racing Porsche driven by Graham Bell. We both thoroughly enjoyed the thrilling, speed of the ride which was over way too soon, but I didn't enjoy my finger getting shut in the electric window of the Porsche ... well at least I came away with an unusual souvenir, a bruised finger!

Goodwood Revival is a classic car race meeting held at the Goodwood race circuit where enthusiasts race their classic cars, and members of the public get in on the spirit of the event by dressing up in classic clothes from the 1930-1950/60's. There are all manner of classic cars being raced from ultra rare Bentleys to Ford's and British Leyland cars from the 1960's.

If you love cars as we do, then Goodwood is really worth visiting for a great day out.

There are so many other places that we both love in England, and things we enjoy doing that could be written about, but where would it all end? This website is a work in progress, so it is possible that more will be written in the future!

Caribbean

Sundries

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