A Weekend in the Countryside
I have been doing quite a lot of visiting with family over the last couple of months. After my trip to Florida to empty my storage unit and visit with my brother, I came back home to Los Angeles where I had flown in my mom to watch 
We have been staying with her sister in London, rather than with her dad who lives in Newmarket where we usually stay. When we come to the UK, we like to go to Ludlow to visit
There isn't a lot of space for all of us in her friend's house, so we usually try to find a nice place to rent in the country. This time we managed to get this gorgeous little house on a farm just outside of town. We actually got lucky, because the owners are trying to sell this place so that they can move to France. They are getting close to finding buyers, so we wouldn't have gotten the chance had we waited much longer!
One thing I like around Ludlow is that there is a lot of locally made, high quality products. They have everything from local cheeses, butter, jams and chutneys, bacon, to ciders and beers. This particular cider, Robinsons, I was told by a local is quite smooth and sneaks up on you. Apparently he drank 4 of them and his legs basically gave out on him. He was quite amused that he stood up and collapsed but seemed fine from the waist up. I think I will stick to one or two, just in case!
We invited our friends over to the farm house where we grilled chicken and had salad on the side. It was a great day! The owner left us all kinds of outdoor games to play, such as a bow and arrow set with suction cup arrows and a target.
The owners have a lot of chickens and ducks hanging around the property. They were very kind to give us duck and chicken eggs to have with breakfast. One thing I love in England that you don't get as much of in the states is room temperature eggs. When the eggs have not been refrigerated, it makes it much easier to cook them. The problem with refrigerated eggs is that when you try to do sunny side up, the yolk is often too cold so you have to overcook it a bit.
I also just feel like they taste better unrefrigerated. That is a subjective opinion, of course!
The whole house is very rustic and has a lot of wabi-sabi. One thing we all had to be careful of was the stairs. They were clearly built with no kind of measuring devices whatsoever. Each step was a different height, and if you weren't careful you could easily come tumbling down, or knock the crap out of your foot.
You definitely have to watch your step and move carefully around the house. Especially going through certain doors, which had about 5 foot high openings.
Perils of Black and White Houses
A local friend was telling us that you should never buy a black and white house. We asked why, and he began to tell us about a friend of his who's career is repairing these types of houses.
Apparently, according to him, people used whatever they used to cover the wood in black in an attempt to protect the wood from the elements. The problem, he says, is that this actually has the opposite effect. The black stuff that they put on the wood causes the wood to not be able to breath, thereby allowing the inside wood to rot.
He took me around the inside of the house showing me instances of where the walls have been repaired from such issues. Personally, I don't think it's that much fo a big deal. These houses look so thrown together anyway, so the repairs don't exactly ruin the aesthetic much.
I imagine that these house were built by the original owners hundreds of years ago, and that these folks weren't exactly carpenters. I building a basic house was similar to having basic cooking skills in those days. Most people likely had some level of basic building skills.
Little Ricky really had a great time chasing the chickens around. Funny enough, the chickens seemed to tolerate him quite well. In fact, they were kind of following him around.
We had a really great weekend in our little farm house. I'm going to make another post about some of the things we did which in town! I would highly recommend Ludlow if you are visiting the UK. Don't expect anything super exciting, but it is a great little town with friendly people and great local treats. It's also a nice place to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.