Having hardly seen each other the month of May, Briza and I managed to get a few days short break this last week. We were really blessed to get an upgrade on the room we had booked in a lovely hotel in Cheltenham. The deal was for bed breakfast and evening meal and the room we ended up staying in was a special treat. The bathroom alone was luxury enough to spend a week in! We made use of the flat screen TV at the end of the bath a couple of times and I was particularily taken with the multi colour light which illuminated the loo roll, making a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night quite an adventure.
It was great to have the time together! We had almost forgotten what it was like to be away together without the children. I'm happy to say they were being well looked after by Briza'a sister and hubby who had kindly offered to come and 'babysit'.
For me, the sign of a good break is the number of sketches and paintings one manages to do. There was not much opportunity the first day as we braved the weather which continuously threatened rain - Briza looked quite hunky in the bright yellow rain poncho I had been carrying around with me for months in anticipation of such an occasion! The second day promised much better weather and we set off on a longer walk. Having the luxury of time I actually managed three sketches and various water colour washes as we paused and admired the views over Cheltenham from our vantage point high up the mountain.
One of our stopping points was at 'devils chimney' a natural stone structure which history records was for many years a challenge to climbers. Now cordoned off due to erosion, it was fascinating to learn that at one time 13 people had actually climbed up and perched on top.
