A Trip To Badminton

Today I wanted to share a lovely little trip I had recently. I seem to end up in Bath a lot because of my blog which is brilliant as it has to be one of my favourite cities in the UK. A few weeks ago I headed over that way with my friend Emma to enjoy an overnight stay with Joules to celebrate the Badminton Horse Trials.


Before Joules emailed me about the trip I had never heard of the Badminton Horse Trials before. I had always thought that badminton was just a sport a little bit like tennis, I had no idea that it was also a beautiful village that hosts such this traditional event every year. I already adore horses, I have to stroke every horse I meet, so I was very excited for the trip.
Joules have sponsored the horse trials for decades so it made sense that this press trip centred around this particular weekend. After getting up ridiculously early to catch a train from Paddington, Emma and I arrived at the beautiful hotel to be greeted by the Joules team and lots of other bloggers. Most of which were wearing a Joules yellow raincoat which was pretty hilarious.



Joules took us along to the village of Badminton, which is about half an hour drive away from Bath. On the way over Emma and I spotted all the pretty pale yellow houses in the village and made a mental note to have an explore there later. We arrived at the horse trials and had a browse around all the various stalls, most of which were selling lots of countryside themed products. Emma and I fell in love with the alpaca wool throws and spent a little while chatting to the couple who sourced them about their various travels around Peru. I think alpacas have to be one of the most adorable animals on the planet.




After a little bit of shopping, all the bloggers met up to enjoy a beautiful picnic that the Joules team had organised for us all. Despite the slightly cold temperature at this point we all had a really delicious lunch and particularly enjoyed watching all the horses trot pass us.

 



We had a little look at the dressage competition but soon realised that despite how beautiful the horses where we didn't have much interest in the actual competitive side of Badminton. I mostly like the sort of horse that I can give a good cuddle to. We decided to walk along to the village itself and have a look at all those pretty houses I mentioned earlier.




After a four mile walk down a country road in wellies, which was pretty amusing, we arrived at the village. It was definitely worth the blisters as both Emma and I completely fell in love with the houses and the gardens. There were clematises everywhere and pretty much every single house was a pale battery yellow colour. We also managed to get much closer to the horses here, who were being taken to the stables by their riders. It was amazing to see such huge horses that close up.


That evening, after getting ready at the hotel, we headed out for a lovely dinner in the centre of Bath. It was really wonderful getting to know the Joules team better, who are possibly the nicest bunch of ladies I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. They organised such a wonderful trip and I could tell that they had put so much thought into our stay.

Unfortunately, I forced Emma to wake up pretty early the next morning and after a hearty breakfast at the hotel, I had to rush off to teach one of my workshops in the centre of London. Despite all the rushing around and early starts it was such a lovely trip and I felt really restored and happy to meet so many interesting ladies. Thanks for a wonderful trip Joules!