Leciester & Nottingham

Well, I'm currently sitting in the Hilton Hotel in Nottingham at 8:05pm, after a freezing cold day out in the city.

We spent yesterday on a country drive from Reading (pronounced Reding) to Leciester (pronounced Lester). It was a lot of driving but we got to see some very beautiful villages, towns and the lovely country side.

There were some really beautiful houses along the way, that date back to medieval times. We often feel as if we are driving through a movie set, as everything is so old and traditional and rather similar to the world of Harry Potter.

We stopped at a place called Bourton on the Water, which was very nice. It's a very popular tourist attraction which is often called the Venice of Coltswolds because of the bridge-spanned-stream that runs through the village. It was very beautiful and had lots of coffee shops and cute little stores. We visted an iconic attraction, which is basically a model of the village. It was very clever and has been there for over 70 years, everything was very detailed. Overall it was a great experience. We then visted the local motor museum, which was fantastic! It was organised into eras and not only included cars, but clothes and appliances etc. It was also the home of the real Brum! You know, that little yellow car that had it's own tv show haha. In this video you can see the garage he pulls out of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNAvuaPO1yw , that garage is the motor museum that we vistited :) The village was very beautiful and I would suggest it to anyone visiting England.

We headed off to a hotel in Leciester last night, and stayed the night there in two seperate rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. It was very nice and I slept very well. Mum, Dad and Sam on the other hand all woke up at around 4 am. This I assume is our bodies still adjusting from the jetlag; we've had a bit of dizzyness, headaches and tiredness over the last few days, but overall it hasn't been too bad. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant last night and this morning we had a free breakfast at the hotel, which was rather nice.

We packed up and headed out to a frosty car, literally, we had to sit in it and let the ice thaw out on the windows so that we could see! It's really cold here! Today it was 3 degrees max, which is such a contrast to what we have at home! We drove to Nottingham in the frosty weather and had arrived by mid-morning. Mum has selected a great hotel, which is right in the thick of the city and all the lovely spots here in Nottingham.

We headed off to go and buy some warmer coats, which are practically like doonas, but they're keeping us warm! Sam unfortunately is suffering from a severe case of chapped lips and I always have bright red cheeks and nose haha. But now at least that we have our warm coats, our bodies are nice and warm :) We also met a lovely tailor in the shop where Dad bought his coat from who really helped make our day as he was a real gentlemen and lovely man, who was very friendly :)

We walked down (in our new warm coats) to see a statue of Robin Hood and the remains of the old castle. Across the road their was a house that had been built in medieval times and had been moved to Nottingham, which was really amazing. We only saw the outside of it, but that was plenty good enough for us :)

There was also a lovely place that we visited called 'Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem' which is the oldest Inn in England. (check it out on the website http://www.triptojerusalem.com/) This place is so incredible! The walls were all made out of sandstone and all in very odd shapes and heights, there was also many traditional decorations, stools and tables etc. The atmosphere was really amazing. Whilst having a few drinks the owner told us a few stories about the Inn, which we all found very interesting/amusing. We were told that in the room next to us a little girl who used to live in the chamber of the room haunted it. He also got us to play an very old game as we were about to leave, where you had to swing a ring on a long string onto a large horn on the wall. The owner did it the first time, us however all came very close (except poor Mum) but never quite got it on. This has been one of our favourite spots so far.

We have spent the earlier part of our evening wandering around the city streets having a look at the various stalls and shops, selling things such as candy apples, chocolate covered fruit and lots of hot beverages. There's some lovely Christmas decorations out and even an outdoor ice rink! ...too bad none of us can skate haha.

Tomorrow we're off to visit family in the more suburban part of Nottingham. It will be lovely to catch up with them and meet one of Nan's sisters :)

Anyways, everyone's asleep now besides me, so I better be getting off to bed! It's only 8pm, but we all get very tired.

Hope you all are well!

I'll hopefully be able to get back on here soon and update you all :)

All the best!

Mia.