Back to England - Cheltenham

As we re-entered England, the only real change was the placenames. It was peak-hour as we made our way through the suburbs of Cheltenham. This blog post is very short as we were only in Cheltenham for a couple of days.

We stayed with Ruth Martin, an old friend of Candice's mum who has a lovely cottage in the centre of town. Ruth works for British Intelligence so she couldn't tell us too much...or she might have had to kill us! ;)

Cheltenham is a large town of about 100,000 people in Gloucertershire. It has been known as a holiday spa town since the discovery of mineral springs here in 1716 (not that we saw any or even knew this when we arrived).

Cheltenham (and the neighbouring village of Winchcombe) was where Candice's mum spent most of her teenage years, so this time it was Candice's turn to trace her English roots.


Holding up a Maccas takeaway bag in Cheltenham


The centre of Cheltenham. The statue is of Edward Adrian Wilson, a famous Antarctic explorer. The municipal offices are in the background.


"The Minotaur and the Hare", a bronze sculpture in the Promenade

Ruth's a bit of a fitness fanatic (not a bad thing) - recently she did the "End to End" walk which involved 3 months of walking from the Southernmost point of England to the Northernmost point of Scotland. No busses, no cars, no cheating. Now that's hardcore.

To show we weren't lightweights, we joined Ruth for a run with her running club - a superb way to get the blood pumping and to sample some of the countryside around Cheltenham. We met up with the rest of the runners behind a golf club in the hills overlooking Cheltenham.


As we gather for the run


The countryside


Candice made jogging with a camera look easy


Ruth and I (Nat) jog


Cheltenham as viewed from the hills


Candice and Ruth

As it turned out, the bloke leading our run that day was a bit of a character. He's a retired army officer who claims to survive on only 4000 pounds a year. He joined us for a meal at The Plaisterers Arms in the village of Winchcombe after our run and didn't really shut up. He was a fountain of knowledge on how to make ends meet... and on pretty much everything else - much akin to David Brent from "The Office.


Good grub at the pub

We bid Cheltenham farewell and drove a "whopping" 40 minutes to Birmingham, the United Kingdom's second largest city. People here think that's far.

For more photos of our stay in Cheltenham, visit http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=48380&l=6db0b&id=681501850