A travel day today as we come to the end of our stay in the UK.

We made egg sandwiches so we could have a picnic lunch en route. But where to have that picnic? We asked ChatGPT which gave us five suggestions, all of which seemed reasonable. We picked Minster Lovell, a place we had never heard of, as it was a drive of just over two hours, which would get us there at lunchtime.

The drive was along the A40, just about from start to finish, although Google had us make several side trips down B roads - mostly to avoid small towns that the A40 chose to meander through. Each time we rejoined it, it had changed its personality in the meantime. Sometimes it was a six lane motorway, other times it had reduced to a single lane each way.

Minster Lovell was a pretty village with more visitors than carparks. We were lucky to be there in a quieter period. We were there because ChatGPT had recommended the ruins of the 15th century manor house on the banks of the river Windrush as a suitably scenic place to picnic. ChatGPT was right.

After lunch we toured the village church of St Kenelm's, also 15th century, which you can see in the photo below.

Then we walked down the main street of the village, marvelling at the number of cottages with thatched roofs.

It was still early and we were in no hurry to get to Farnham so we detoured a little out of our way to the city of Oxford, another place we had never been before. This was very spontaneous and we had no idea where to go but we found a carpark and spent an hour walking through the city centre admiring the old buildings, the old market and the brand new shopping centre.

Then we got on the road again and meandered down through Newbury and Basingstoke to Farnham. In all our visits to Farnham over the years, we had never ventured west of the A31 and so approaching it from the west today was the first time we've seen the pleasant looking old town.

We had two aims for this evening. We needed to pack and we needed an early night. Packing was more involved than it might seem. We arrived in the UK with three checked bags and if we can't leave tomorrow with only two, we will have a hefty bill at the airport for the extra bag. On top of that, we've bought one or two voluminous items since we've been here, including the largest quilt you've ever seen. But we were confident that we could do it, and two hours and multiple trips to the bathroom scales later, we proved ourselves correct.

We managed the early(ish) night as well. Our alarm is set for 4.15 in the morning, so we can catch an early flight out of Heathrow. But you'll read about that in tomorrow's blog post.