Slugs, a Birthday, and Croquet

Left York/Breighton area and drove southwest to a town that was randomly picked called Burton-Upon-Trent.  It is one of the many strange names around this country.  I learned that it is referring to Burton that is "upon" the Trent River.  So a town along that river is called "Upon Trent."

If you find yourself in England you can skip that town.  It was like stopping in Pace for a visit.  No offense to Pace, but there was not a lot going on there.  We picked it to break up our drive towards the southern coast of England. 

We checked in and the place we rented was just okay.  Had a cute living and dining room area.  A room upstairs that smelled like cat pee.  A tolerable amount, but still.  Over grown grass and an untidy kitchen. This wasn't quite up to the standards we were expecting with Airbnb.  We could deal though.  

The day after we arrived was gonna be Luna's birthday, so we headed to the store, bought a cake and her meals of choice for that day.  Fast forward and girls are in bed, Diego and I are talking and walking towards the kitchen and "what is that?".......................flip on the lights................ahhh "slugs!!!"  All over the kitchen sink.  Diego collected them and put them in a bag, took it to the trash and thinking that they were coming from the sink drain we put the sink plug in place.  We were a little freaked out, but gonna talk to the owner the next day.  I wake up the next morning to find out that Diego went back down to the kitchen after I fell asleep and they were all over the place again.  Not just the sink, but the floor, the walls, the counters...........yuck.

He had already contacted Airbnb with pictures and they were in the process of refunding us. So we packed up the car and headed out to a new Airbnb that Diego found.  Stopped for a birthday breakfast.





We drove about 1.5 hours, but it was definitely worth it.  A beautiful cottage out in the country.  Got settled by 1pm and headed off to the nearest movie theater to celebrate with Luna by watching Secret Life of Pets.  

The view from our cottage

The area where we were staying was called Stourport-on-Severn and we spent our time there enjoying the cottage, exploring a nearby English Heritage site called Whitly Court, 

Of course having tea,

A British way to say "Don't bring your own food!"

and visited family of our friends.

We have had a lot of tea this past month.

Crochet Game in the Garden

We stayed so long I think we're family now :)
We had a great stay out there.  If I lived in England I would choose that country setting.