Home away from home in picturesque location

SOMETIMES, a night away from home is all you need; to get away from the usual scenery, to break up the routine.

- ESTEL FARELL ROIG

Leading busy lives, finding the time isn't always easy - especially when it can feel you need to go far away to find somewhere special.

However, in the South West, we have plenty of magical spots that can transport you miles away despite only being a short drive away from home.

And recently I was lucky enough to find one of those places; the cottage at The Painswick Hotel, located in a Cotswolds town with the same name, just under an hour's drive from Bristol.

As it is quite often the case when you have young children, we didn't have the smoothest start of the day and getting toddlers for a journey is very rarely easy in my experience.

However, the thought of getting to spend the night away somewhere beautiful was enough to motivate us and luckily for us, they both fell asleep on the way there making our drive up the M5 much more pleasant.

The first thing that struck me when we got there is what a picturesque, quiet spot the Painswick is in; the countryside views surrounding it are truly stunning and I immediately felt so far away from Bristol.

We started our stay with a delicious champagne afternoon tea, which was all freshly made and of excellent quality.

For me, the absolute highlight were the huge scotch eggs, with a generous meat filling, a runny egg yolk in the middle, and a crispy batter. So yummy, I could have eaten more and more of these.