Stroud Farmer's Market

Our weekend started out bright and early on Saturday morning with a trip to the Stroud Farmer's Market. It was a beautiful drive through the hills, and a couple of little villages but I don't have any pictures because I was driving! I decided a quiet Saturday morning was a good time to try out my driving skills. I must say it went very well. I think it helped that I'd been riding in the passengers seat for a couple of weeks getting used to everything being backwards :) The biggest challenge I found was getting out of the inside lane of the roundabouts. If you're going more than halfway around the circle, you're supposed to go to the inside lane. Easy enough, but, using my left hand mirror to get out of that lane, isn't as easy. I'll get lots of practice, because every time you blink you're in another roundabout. It is faster since you don't have to stop as much at red lights, but you also don't get that time at the red light to catch your breath!

Back to the Farmer's Market ...


The Farmer's Market was pretty amazing. There were a huge number of vendors with everything from the usual fruits and vegetables ...


... to bread, eggs, lamb, beef, sausage, jellies and jams, toys, hand made items of clothing, soaps, pottery, homemade food, milk, cream, pot pies, lambs wool rugs, books, jewelry, and more, that I can't recall right now!




Sausage (and other delectables!) wrapped in homemade pastry ... how could you not love that!


And of course, the cutest kids to be found ...


We had an awesome breakfast of sausage, bacon, and lamb. The bacon in England is beyond good. Oh my, it's so yummy, we eat it every chance we get!


Mathis ... my number one bag carrier :)

Stroud was a really neat town. The High Street was on a hill with beautiful old shops. The surrounding hills were dotted with stone houses ... so pretty! I don't remember the street being this crowded! Everyone must have run together at the same time to get into my picture :)


The drive home was a little stressful after we missed a turn and the SatNav (GPS) took us the back way through tiny streets up and down hills. We got to see a little more of Stroud than we would have preferred. I was thankful we were driving an automatic and not the manual we had last week!

While Bard and the boys napped, Kate and I headed out to some charity shops (thrift stores :). There are lots and lots of charity shops, but each one is the size of a boutique, so it makes for a lot of options. The selection is small, but they only display top quality clothes, which is nice. The prices are a little more expensive, so I have to be selective, which is a good thing. The only downside is the children's selection is very small. Most of our boys' pants have holes in them from wearing them every other day, so we're in hot pursuit of some new clothes for them. Kate is quite the crazy shopper and finds five or ten things at each shop that she desperately needs!!

Here she is in a few of her finds since we've arrived ...
new skirt (I know this is a school uniform skirt, but it was too cute to pass up!), new blouse, new sunglasses, and new purse. She loves to pay and keep the receipts in her purse. The necklace is mine, although she found several at the shops that she insisted she must take home :)


After Kate wore me out shopping, we all went to a concert in the park near us and then stocked up on a couple days' worth of food and enjoyed some time at the playground. It took me a bit by surprise when the brass band begin playing "My Country 'tis of Thee" at the end of the concert! Ooops, guess that wasn't exactly right!

Sunday was busy with church. We have found a really great church, which we are so excited about. I'll write about that soon.

A few playground pictures ...


Jackson likes to come right up under the camera and look up into it, then he must see the resulting picture ... each time!