Half Term Escape 1 - Misfortune

I didn't read the email correctly, or perhaps at all. So, when I was asked whether I'd contacted our host, I was surprised. That was Friday, we travelled today, Saturday.  But, it's OK, because Thomas has a party to go to, and we can't get into the house until 16:00.  I phoned about 9am, to find that a mobile connection was almost impossible, he said he'd phone back in two hours, which he did.  The connection was better, but still poor, and there was a lot to communicate.  We got there, with pen and paper and lots of 'please repeat that'.

Liz and I agreed to meet in Royal Tunbridge Wells, so that we could shop for food for the week.  We set out on the 1-hour and15-minute journey with nearly 40 minutes to spare.  The M25 near the bridge took care of about 15 of our contingency minutes.  The Google Maps diverted us to go down the A22 instead of the A21.  As we arrived at the A22 junction, it tried to send us back up the motorway, presumably to go down the A21. Liz went down the A21 and arrived 15 minutes ahead of us, we were about 10 minutes late.  

In RTW, we walked across town to 'The Cheese shop' and bought a selection of cheeses to eat during the week, and to christen the cheese board she had bought us for our 40th wedding anniversary. We get quite wet getting there, and wetter still going back, so stopped for a coffee.  While there, I took a call from our host, giving me a new number to call on if there were problems. He had suffered another misfortune.  The reception on this call was great!

Leaving RTW we headed south to Lidl to do the food shopping.  There was a beer festival and steam train at the station, but we couldn't stop as we had a table booked for 18:30, and our ETA at the house was now 18:00.

On arrival all the instruction we received had worked well, and we found the place without problem, we were all ready for a meal and a rest when we finally arrived at the Merrie Harriers.  The food was very good.

On returning to the house we found a number of flies in our bedroom, mostly dead, but there were more live ones the following morning.

The house looks great, and is very spacious, but in some ways not hugely practical.  Our bedroom is upstairs, there is no shower, only a bath.  More of that tomorrow.