Countryside reflections

As we sit on the train to Edinburgh and reflect on our time in South-West England, a few poignant thoughts come to mind:

1.  Driving in England is hard. Although I found driving in the opposite side of the road to be a fairly easy conversion and even got reasonably comfortable with the incredible number of roundabouts, I will likely never get used to the narrow and curving streets in the countryside.  They may call them double roads but when one car has both sides of it whacked by bushes as it drives down a road, that is not what I would consider a two-way street!  For all those incredible people who have driven me around the British countryside during the course of my life, a heartfelt belated thank-you!

2.  People in the British countryside know how to live and eat well.  Whether it is the long walks through the hills with their dogs or the leisurely lunches and later dinners they enjoy (sometimes hosted in the local garden centre!), they really seemed to have figured out how to live a great life.  We are still impressed that the vegetarian food in each of the places we visited not only lived up to but often surpassed the tastes we experienced in London.  A list of the great vegetarian restaurants we enjoyed is at the end of this post.

3.  Although they both enjoy lots of green space, rural England and downtown London seem like two completely different worlds.  In London, everyone is hurrying around whereas you hardly see anyone working the fields in the countryside.  In London, no one has a car but you cannot survive without one in the country.  They eat at different times (rural England, to our delight, enjoys a much later dinner hour) and seem motivated by completely different things. For a small country, England clearly has a very diverse population.

With that said - we're off to Edinburgh to see a completely different side of this great United Kingdom!

Restaurants:  

-  The Swindon Marriott's quorn filets

-  The Olive Tree Cafe in Swindon (and, oddly, in a garden centre!)
-  Bath's Acorn Restaurant

-  Herbie's  in Exeter

-  Tasty Pasty (Cornish Pasties) in Cornwall

-  Meluha in Bristol 

- Cafe Maitreya in Bristol suburbs 

-  Beezee's Tea House with its exception quorn hotdogs and jacket potatoes

-  The Daffodil in Chelthenham

-  Studio 65 in Tetbury

-  Delicious Sunday lunch nutloaf in Ebrington at the Ebrington Arms 

-  Burford Cafe in Burford (and also, oddly, in a garden centre!)

-  The Montpellier Chapter Hotel restaurant