A week last Sunday, I’d been married for a whole year. So I surprised the Man with the Camera with a night away. He was still a bit exhausted from the Olympics (two and a half weeks away filming the Olympic football at Wembley). I was still a bit knackered from the lingering laziness that descended after my course finished. We wanted somewhere quiet and luxurious for a bit of green, lots of eating and some dozing in sunshine.

We stayed at Ivydene House B&B, easily the best B&B I’ve ever stayed in. It’s tucked away in a village called Uckinghall (don’t say that too quickly when drunk…) near Tewkesbury. And it just gets everything right. There’s two acres of garden, complete with benches, cushions and wrought iron tables (vital for holding the tray of tea and homemade cake we were brought on arrival, after disappearing down the garden path to enjoy some late afternoon sunshine dozing). It’s got a tennis court complete with rackets and tennis balls – which we made use of to justify some more dozing. It’s got a pond, complete with adventurous ducks. It’s got two beautiful guest rooms with all those finishing touches that make a stay away from home truly special. And we ate a truly fab cooked breakfast in the conservatory the next morning, complete with homemade bread, honey from hives in the garden and fresh fruit.

I could waffle on but you’d be better off experiencing it for yourself. If you’re UK-based and fancy a trip Tewkesbury-way, you quite literally couldn’t do better than Ivydene.

Website: http://www.ivydenehouse.net/index/index.html