25 Apr 2012

Spring break in London

After two weeks in London I'm back again in Malacca to be with my beloved cats and my garden, which is looking a bit of a mess nowadays since I wasn't around to weed it. Spring in London was great, in spite of the uncertain British weather - sunny for a while then cloudy, drizzle a bit then half an hour later sunshine again...
We stayed at a Malaysian owned hotel in Bayswater - the Holiday Villa, which is fairly near to all the places I love - Hyde park, Oxford Street, Shepperd's Bush, the museums and even Buckingham Palace! Everything within easy walking distance or tube. The first day we just lazed around in the hotel, since it's all about taking a breather - I had brought two novels for my reading, one of which I finished in the plane - so I ended up reading the second book. At 2.00 pm Repin said he was hungry so off we went to look for food and found a lovely Arab restaurant just a few doors away. The portions were huge though and since we didn't know, had ordered too much so we told  them to pack us the rest of the food for dinner.

That night it rained quite heavily and temperatures went as low as 3 degrees celsius - luckily for us the hotel had central  heating so we were quite cozy wrapped in blankets and watched the telly.

The next day we had already pre booked a Cotswold tour and Norul our niece came along with us. Last year we had gone for a tour of the Cotswolds but it was too fleeting - just a drive around the lanes and a short stop at  Stow, so this time we decided to have a proper tour. On the way we also visited Blenheim Palace, the home of Sir Winston Churchill, of the Malborough family. This is his family home - but it is literally a palace - so huge and filled with ancient portraits of the family. His grandfather had fought in the Napoleonic Wars and Churchill himself served in the army as a young man - he was in the African continent fighting the Boers.

The Cotswolds in Spring is a delight - green fields, rushing streams, flowers everywhere. I just love the serene beauty of the countryside with its quaint looking cottages and shops. Although when we started the weather didn't look promising, it improved as we got nearer to our destination and the day was quite sunny when we were there.


the serene beauty of the English countryside