Last week Hubby and I travelled from Lichfield to Devon for aour holiday. As it’s about a four hour drive if the traffic is good, we decided to break our journey and stop for a coffee and a cake. I looked online for a suitable watering hole and Gloucester motorway services came up. I read the reviews and it sounded wonderful, no big names ie Starbucks or Costa , MandS, Burger King etc, All local produce, a farm shop, indoor children’s play area, and it is a family run business. Having our own small family business we are always eager to support others. Well, we were not disappointed! We parked our car and turned to see what looked like a posh eco friendly Hobbit house! The building is built into a grassy bank with just the front doors visible. Inside was brilliant too, a busy cafe selling freshly cooked food in their own kitchens, lovely cakes and snacks. We chose steak and ale pie, new potatoes and vegs as we couldn’t resist, a cake was just not going to do! We took a seat by the window in the spacious high ceilinged seating are. The view from the window was lovely, landscaped grounds with a large pond with moor hens pottering around. What a pleasant relaxing distraction from the motorway mayhem. After we finished our extremely decent meal, we wondered into the amazing farm shop and bought home made chocolate brownies, shortbread biscuits and some upmarket chocolates to give as a gift to our friend who we were meeting up with in Devon. We ventured into the loos as we still had a long way to go, which were modern and well kept with ‘family rooms’ for baby changing etc.
We came away totally relaxed and refreshed ready to continue our journey. We enjoyed it so much that we made a point of calling in again on our return journey. Such a contrast to the usual rip off prices and the scrum that is your usual motorway services. If you happen to travel south on the M5, give it a try, I’m sure you’ll be amazed too.
