Today Sunday 31st May we visited Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds. Many fine mosaic floors remain intact in the ruins of the Villa.

The Villa was rediscovered in the Victorian Era and has now  been extensively excavated. Here is the remains of the underfloor heating system in the bathhouse.

When the Romans settled in Britain 2000 years ago they brought with them their own favourite edible snails. These have survived on this site despite the Romans being long gone

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From Chedworth we moved on to the Cotswold village of Broadway which could be described as being on the dangerous side of cute.

The chief watering hole here is the Lygon Arms. It's the sort of place that you could easily bump into the PM and Sam Cam having "supper" with their pals Rebecca Brooks and Andy Coulson (assuming Andy's out of jail by now).

By contrast the Richards - Haworth family is spending the night in less salubrious surroundings in the Long Stay Car Park next to the recycling bins.

This morning we woke up to something banging on the side of our camper van. One of the local Galloway Cattle had obviously whacked the van with its tail.

The road from Selworthy Beacon leads to Bossington Hill where it comes to a dead end.

From the end of the road there are marvellous views over Porlock Bay looking west towards the Devon border.

We reluctantly moved on. Firstly to Brean Down just south of Weston Super Mare which proved to be static caravan seaside hell and we quickly left. We are tonight at a car park by Nympsfield Long Barrow (neolithic burial mound built about 4500 years ago) on the edge of the Cotswolds looking over the Severn Estuary.

The long barrow is just a few yards away.

There are apparently about 100 neolithic long barrows in the Cotswolds.

I think that this must be one of the Government's target areas for the mass killing of badgers. We saw this poster on a derelict building nearby which just about says it all.

The long barrow is surrounded by a beautiful herb rich meadow.

Friday 29th May dawned very wet and very windy. It was quite exciting being in the van on top of the hill with the wind whistling and the rain beating! Couldn't see far at all - certainly not over the Bristol Channel to Wales. Eventually it cleared up and we went back to visit Dunster Castle.

Dunster Castle was the "seat" of the Luttrell family for over 600 years until taxes became so burdensome that they gave it to the National Trust.

Here's their dining room all set out for dinner.

There was even a menu for dinner but unfortunately no food. Apparently Laal Maas is a curry from Rajasthan.

The Castle was built on top of a steep mound and there are magnificent views in all directions.

In the afternoon we went back to Minehead and took the West Somerset Railway from there to Bishops Lydeard near Taunton and back to Minehead.

The round trip took about three and a half hours. Here's the engine shunting from one end of the train to the other at Bishops Lydeard.

After the train trip we went back up onto Selworthy Beacon and found an even higher parking place for the night. Here's a view looking south towards Exmoor.

There was a nice sunset.

We finally got to leave home on Thursday 28th May having sorted out builders, doctors appointments etc. After stocking up with groceries, diesel and autogas we headed up to Dunster on the Bristol Channel Coast in Somerset. We briefly visited the car park at Dunster Castle but by then it was too late to visit so we went west, through Minehead and up onto Selworthy Beacon, a high hill to the west of Minehead with great views north towards South Wales and south towards Exmoor.

There were plenty of Galloway Cattle around on the hill top.

Also numerous Exmoor ? Ponies.

We found a marvellous parking place for the night and had a good walk around.

We've been at home now since the end of January when we got back from Italy, Definitely time to do a bit more travelling. Before leaving we needed to have a bit of work done on the house.