The view out of the window was very atmospheric due to the humidity and heat of the previous days.

Glenn and Grant were out for their 6am walk so the views wouldn’t be great.

Getting downstairs I heard the new fridge in the van beeping. Looking inside an error was showing on the battery panel. Not a good thing to happen when we are planning to start our trip this morning!
After reducing the power setting on the fridge I was able to stop the beeping and errors but we headed down to the motorhome repair shop. We had a chat with the engineer and he thinks the problem is that the batteries are low as they haven’t been charged for several days and the fridge is trying to pull a lot of power.
That made sense. The fridge was now fine after a short drive but we may need to upgrade our batteries. We will see how they go while we travel around the UK and have it booked in on the way south if required.

So before 10am we were on our way!

Our first stop was the National Trust Roman villa at Chedworth near Cirencester.
The site was found in 1894 by farm workers who kept finding tesserae from mosaics. They did a bit of digging and found amazing mosaics.

More is still being discovered. The biggest mosaic in the UK was only found in 2018 and has been analysed to have been laid in the 5th Century which is very late for Roman civilization – the Empire in Rome was already gone by 476. This villa would have been occupied by mixed Romano-British people.

We got the complementary audio guide to take us around the site.

We first checked out the amazing mosaics now totally enclosed and protected from the elements. The one in the passage is the longest mosaic in Britain.

The bathhouse was very elaborate with many different hot and cold sections.

The plunge pool rocks looks like marble – but only recently were found to be painted to look like it.

Back outside it was around 31 degrees so we got moving. We found the shrine and also a spring. Water was taken to different parts of the villa by lead pipes. I spotted Glenn further down the site.

There was a second bathhouse along the side of the courtyard.

Reception rooms were at the entrance to the villa area of the complex – also with mosaics. This is where the largest newly discovered mosaic is – but currently covered over to protect it.

Further down was a hot room with the many underfloor columns carved out of stone. It was maybe a warm room for those used to warmer countries.

The kitchen was the room on the edge of the courtyard – probably to limit damage from any fires. This was the view back from there.

We went into the 1864 museum building – only showing a small number of finds.

Glenn posed with the model on the way out of the site.

After having an icecream to cool down we got on our way. The roads around the site are very narrow as it’s in the middle of nowhere. We met only 1 vehicle – unfortunately a tractor either large trailer that we had to reverse for.

Once on the main road we went north up the Roman road the Fosse Way which came from Cirencester – a very roman town.

After 2 hours we arrived on our campsite on Heronbrook farm in the edge of Nottingham. It’s a Caravan and Motorhome club CL site – with minimal facilities for up to 5 vans.
We like these sites as they are usually in very nice country locations – and cheap!

We got the van organised for the first time and then sat outside to enjoy the view of the field.

Glenn was able to do birdwatching in our little field seeing a pheasant with chicks and a grey headed partridge – amongst the usual magpies, pigeons and hundreds of crows.

We waited until the temperature was low enough inside the van to go to bed. It was very pleasant with the fan and I had no problem sleeping. Glenn didn’t find it so easy unfortunately.