England - A Rainy Monday at Sunshine Cottage

Our first morning in England was rainy.  I don't mean drizzly or sprinkly...it rained!  We decided it was a good day to stay indoors where we could hang out by the fireplace, decorate the tree and relax.  We all needed it after a long journey the day before.

Steve let me sleep in (if you know Steve, you'll know that's an act of love right there!) and brought me a cup of French press coffee in bed around 10:00.  What a lovely way to start the day!  We chatted about our plans (or lack of them) for the day and peeked out our bedroom window at the rain and the trees being blown in the wind.  No plans for the day were fine with me!

I finally made my way downstairs and had a bowl of porridge.  You can't call it oatmeal when you're in England, right?

It was my first chance to look around the property and see what we'd missed the night before. 

Confession: these pictures were not taken on the day I'm writing about.  The skies were dark that day and I was smart and stayed warm and dry inside.

Sunshine Cottage on the left

The back patio with hot tub.  The open window on the third
floor was our bedroom.

The road to Nether Burrows

The view of the original farmhouse from our perspective
at Sunshine Cottage

The property owners had supplied us with a Christmas tree to decorate so when the girls finally got up, we put on some Christmas tunes and set them to work!

Careful, Dana!

Nice form, Syd!

Ta da!  The finished product and
 the prettiest tree I've ever seen!

Dana made some delicious stir fry for lunch which we all enjoyed.  It was a lazy day and Steve and I played Bananagrams and had a lot of fun!  It was nice knowing neither of us had anywhere we had to be and could just relax.  Both of us have demanding jobs and volunteer commitments that keep us from doing this as often as we'd like to.

At dinnertime, Dana set the girls to work!  On tonight's menu was butternut squash soup so Syd cut up the squash while Mell separated the seeds to be roasted and sprinkled on top.  The end result was delicious!

 Another quiet evening was spent by the fire sipping wine and enjoying each others' company.  The weather promised to be better on Tuesday and we had a hike planned so it was an early bedtime for us.  

Tomorrow:  The Black Cow pub!