Charles Dickens v Paddington

Hol-i-day, Cel-e-brate la la la (Madonna song - don't know the words).

We spent most of the morning still packing, closing windows, unplugging plugs, cleaning toilets (why do we always do this just before we go away? Who is going to know?). After breakfast the boys collected buckets and spades, jackers (our name for Boules thought there is another name for them here but I have forgotten temporarily. It will probably come to me during the night), baseball gloves, balls, body boards, inflatables etc etc. Huffle steadfastly fit everything into the car and I made sure the house was okay to leave including depositing our beloved Jalapeño Pepper plants into next doors greenhouse for them to look after.

Huffle had decided we were going to leave around 10:30 but the boys and I disobeyed him and were ready for 11:30 - well we weren't able to get in the cottage until after 4pm so there was no use in hurrying. The kids had their tablets and DS' with them in the back and started playing. The rule being that they had 30 mins on and 30 mins off but that seemed to get abandoned half way through the journey. At 1pm ish we stopped in Woodstock for lunch and found an English Pub called Charles Dickens. The first thing we noticed on the menu was 'Fish and Crisp Sandwich'. This has obviously been mis-translated. I can almost hear someone saying oh Chips, yes they are called Crisps in England so it must be called Fish and Crisps. The menu didn't inspire us much so we asked for a couple of bowls of fries and a plate of bread and butter and then had a good old fashioned Chip Butty. Oooooh it were lovely (must be said in a Leicester accent). It wasn't the best place despite being rated number 7/23 on Trip Advisor but they were very polite and accommodating.

Two of the strangest cars on our journey, Dukes of Hazard and Nipple Car plus a mass of motorbikes too!

....and what is English Seafood Sauce?

Our journey carried on through London and Warwick (very English Cities) until we eventually got to our destination. We found our house. It was the one next door to a party that seemed to have spilled out onto our garden. It was very loud but as we approached they moved the people off the garden and turned the music down to introduce themselves. They have already offered us use of their kayaks and canoe should we want it - brilliant. Apparently we have the river at the bottom of our garden so we can kayak from there. The music continued and we unpacked and had a tour round the house. He boys chose their bedrooms and then changed their minds and swapped. Once again, MrHuffle has surpassed himself and found us another curious place with which to rest our heads for ten days.

There is a very strange mezzanine in the living room and above the kitchen. It leads to a hallway with a door (locked) and has three window holes (with no glass, just openings) and in the middle of two of the holes is a chair!! What?! It makes no sense whatsoever unless they are planning to make it in to something. The details said "a fully renovated cottage". There are no curtains at the front door (but a clear window), no curtains at the kitchen window (overlooks next door), there is an unfinished kitchen cupboard and on top of the mezzanine (which has no complete stairs, just a step ladder leading to some wooden steps and nothing to stop you falling over the edges) is what looks like a deflated air bed. It is bizarre. It was very very hot when we arrived so we put the air conditioning on, put our clothes away, though not in the drawers or wardrobes because they were full of someone else's clothes, made our beds after finding the bedding and went out to check out the local beach.

Who would sit in a chair just there?

This was advertised as being a five minute walk and had it not been so hot and humid, we would have tried to walk. We drove a long way, couldn't find anywhere to park and then walked in the blistering heat to a long skinny beach backed by sand dunes. The water was very shallow and the boys went straight in. Huffle and I paddled up to the bottom of our shorts and stood there watching the kids. They loved it.

Beaching, swimming, clouds, sand dunes

We stayed there for an hour or so and then left to find dinner and a supermarket. After driving to Grand Bend we found dinner at another English place - we were not looking for them honestly - called Paddingtons. We were even accompanied by live music (which was a bit country but very good). The food was good but for some reason everyone else's looked much better than ours which was a tiny bit disappointing. The place also had no air conditioning and it was sweltering in there.

There was a supermarket but unfortunately we arrived forty minutes too late to shop there so we picked up a loaf of bread from the general store and headed back to the cottage. Unfortunately the party was still going on as the kids were getting into bed but it wasn't too noisy.

Huffle made us a cup of tea and we snaffled a bit of chocolate while blogging and laughing at our house which was at least cool.

 

 

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