This is very long and I’ve left out a lot of what we did so it doesn’t really do the month justice but I am determined to stick to my format. I probably wouldn’t read it but if you do take the time it is appreciated.
Traditionally October is our adventure month. This is when we go away because it’s Lyn’s birthday and our wedding anniversary (35 years). It has the added bonus’s that it’s a bit cheaper, less crowded and fewer children. With everything happening this year we hadn’t booked anything but back in May we did a ‘proof of concept’ about traveling to somewhere in the UK, staying in a Travelodge (cheap motel chain) and visiting National Trust and English Heritage properties in the area. You can read about that here. This went very well so we booked a few days in the Maidstone Central Travelodge in Kent and the next week a few days in Bangor Travelodge in North Wales with a stop off on the last night in a Cardiff Bay Premier Inn Wales. But first this…
Back in July I told you that while at the North Devon Show Lyn said her ‘thing’ was animals and I said keep that in mind. Well for her birthday/anniversary I got her the Zoo Keeper Experience at Exmoor Zoo. I did all the research for this on my own and I would also like to add that when I ran it past my mother-in-law and our daughter they both expressed doubts that she would like it because she might have to pick up poo.
When Z (Zoo) Day arrived I’ve not seen Lyn that excited since she saw sloths in Costa Rica, but this lasted all day long. Worth every penny just to see the childlike exuberance on her face. I thought I’d just spend the day in the cafe drinking tea but instead I followed her around on what was essentially a private tour but with lots of animal interactions. If you have someone (over 16) in your life who likes animals get them this experience. I’ll be living off this for years.
For our big trip we borrowed Matthew’s car and set off for Kent stopping at Stonehenge. As piles of rocks in a field go there’s none more iconic than Stonehenge. I spent 7 years driving past it twice a week but it served more as an annoyance because of the traffic jams. You can’t get up close and personal anymore which I feel misses the point. Maybe if you could still walk among them it might of felt… somehow more. Also lets remember that while Stonehenge was being built, at roughly the same time, the pyramids were going up so on that comparison its fairly low down. We then stopped at Chartwell, Winston Churchills home. I’m going to keep my views about Churchill to myself but I will say I loved his purple velvet jumpsuit which is part of a new exhibition they have there. Chartwell is loverly and I can see why he said “A day away from Chartwell is a day wasted”.
The following day was our visit to Hever Castle the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. This was Lyn’s choice and a big pull of why we picked Kent for our stay. Not being part of NT or EH we had to pay for entry and it wasn’t cheap. My expectations for visiting anywhere is it should be £10 because I’m getting old and I can remember when you could have a good night out for a tenner. Hever was ALL good, house and grounds are fantastic and worth the entry price. We followed this up in the afternoon with a trip to Knole, a spectacular set of buildings that was almost like a small village. I had a touch of vertigo at the top on the main tower but worth it for the view. The story of the ballerina is fascinating. We finished the day with a steak dinner at Buenos Aires Nights an Argentine Steakhouse. I’ve not had a steak dinner out in decades and it might be a mixture of absence making the heart grow fonder and just an amazing bit of meat but it was superb. I’ll try and keep it under 10 years for the next one.
The weather changed the next day and it was very overcast for a triple header of Bodiam Castle, Scotney Castle and Sissinghurst Castle. Bodiam was fun despite it being just a ruin. We had quite a long chat with the staff and volunteers and this is actually one of the more fun aspects of visiting National Trust properties. Almost everyone is so friendly. We also had the castle to ourselves at the start and I climbed up the tallest tower despite my ‘vertigo’ that has come on late in life. The pick of the day was Scotney Castle. Not only did it have 2 sites with the ruined medieval castle and the main Victorian house but it had colourful autumn foliage and what will always be remembered as the ‘fanny tree’. The main feature of the last one, Sissinghurst, was a giant tower whose sole purpose apparently was a viewing platform to watch the hunts (I climbed up this as well).
For our last day we visited Eltham Palace, which is somewhere I’ve always wanted to see. We were supposed to see it the day before but it was closed due to filming. It’s been used as a film/TV location in things like Wonka, The Crown and Brideshead Resisted (2006). I love the whole Art Deco aesthetic and it didn’t disappoint with an added bonus of having a dressing up box in the old Tudor hall. Lyn doesn’t touch these for fear of nits (head lice). Our last stop in Kent was Ightham Mote which is pronounced ‘ai-tum-mowt’. It was okay. The grey overcast sky didn’t help and I’ll be honest at this point I was a bit overdosed on historic homes and felt we were just going through the motions. We decided to treat ourselves to a Pizza Express as they do vegan option for me (I now have lactose intolerance) and a béchamel base for Lyn. I also had Hot Honey Dough Balls which is now my stripper name!
So what do I think of Kent, ‘The Garden of England’. My overwhelming thought was trees. Lots and lots of trees. There seemed to be far more of them and much larger than those in Devon. In fact the word ‘Hurst’, which you’ll find at the end of lots of place names in the South East, means a wooded hill. Kent is a Reform strong hold with overall control of the county council. Consequently it’s probably going to be downhill or down hurst from here on. There were quite a few flags on lamp posts (sigh) which made me feel I had to be extra nice to people to counter it. The only bits of ‘trouble’ or lets call it ‘street theatre’ we saw was caused but white women. The Travelodge was what you’d expect. It needed a good clean and some maintenance but it served a purpose and we were able to have a reasonable nights sleep for not a lot of money.
The following week we headed for Wales, more specifically Bangor and yes we did have a loverly time. The drive up to Bangor was nearly 6 hours. When I was planning this it looked closer on the map. As we weren’t in a hurry we decided to drive up through Wales instead of around it on the motorway. We couldn’t book in to the Travelodge until 3pm so we headed for Conway, just down the road. Our entire knowledge of Conway is that it was the home base of Drew Pritchard from Salvage Hunters. Of course it’s next most famous for the castle so we had a look around that especially as we got in half price thanks to being English Heritage members. If you are members for more than a year you get into the Welsh Castles or Cadw for free! I used to love ruined castles but these days they’re just not my thing. It’s not them, it’s me. I guess I just don’t have the imagination anymore. One place I will give a mention to is The Jester’s Tower where we got 2 pots of tea for £5!
One of the biggest surprises was the Travelodge. It’s in a service area/truck stop and there’s a petrol station, Burger King, Starbucks, etc. I thought it was going to be bad but… the outside was exactly what you’d expect, except for the muster of wild peacocks! The Travelodge itself was one of the cleanest and tidiest I’ve ever been in. I don’t know if its had a recent overhaul but seriously you could do a hell of a lot worse especially given the price. It was also quiet at night! If you are going to North Wales on a budget or even if you’re not, stay here.
I was very excited for Monday because this was our train ride up Mount Snowdon. A lot of the reviews I’d read had spoken about how, after paying for the train they either didn’t get all the way to the top or couldn’t see anything because of the weather. Fortunately for us the weather was perfect with enough cloud to make it interesting but not block the views. and no wind. My ‘vertigo’ kicked in a little when I went up the last little bit but definitely worth it.
After Snowdon we went to Penrhyn Castle. This is now my favourite NT property. Despite what it looks like, it was built in the early 1800’s and has an interior that I would pick if I was the 19th century equivalent of an evil billionaire. I added evil there but that should be a given for any billionaire.
To round off one of my favourite days this month we had the best dinner of our trip to Wales at a place called Dylan’s in Anglesea. Apparently the food is ‘award nominated’ which made me laugh. It was very nice though, pity about the lack of parking.
The weather changed again for the next day and was very dull and overcast. We’d decided to spend the day on Anglesea and went to Plas Newydd House overlooking the Menai Straits. This place has lots of interesting things about it. For example it was the home of Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge who famously lost his leg at the Battle of Waterloo, they have his false leg there. It has a marvellous 17 meter ‘fantasy’ mural in the dinning room which every home should have and allegedly lots of Red Squirrels which of course we didn’t see. I was having a very long conversation with one of the staff about various paintings and she told me about Enoch Seeman (1694-1744) a portrait artist who had multiple copies of the same body and then would just paint the face on it of whoever commissioned him. They had 2 at the house, same body different faces. He also didn’t like painting hair so the Temu of painters. We had lots of little interactions like this at all the places we went to and I love learning stuff like that.
The next day we said goodbye to North Wales and headed South. Sadly I didn’t get to go to Zip World, Partly because Lyn didn’t want to do it but mostly because I’m too fat. She did get me a flyer so that, like Bullseye, I could see what I could have done.To break up the drive back home we decided to have a night in Cardiff and this gave us an opportunity to Visit Powis Castle which is pretty much in the middle of Wales. Powis was owned by the Herbert family and the Earl of Powis. They gave the castle to the National Trust in 1952 but kept all the surrounding land. So gave away the bit that cost money while retaining the bit that makes money. They still own a lot of stuff inside and won’t allow photos. They didn’t get that rich by sharing and this is why you tax wealth not work.
For our last night I thought we’d go posh and I booked us in to a Premier Inn in a Premier Plus room no less. Long story short it was terrible, we had a rotten nights sleep but we did get a free, all you can eat, breakfast in the morning AND I got the money back for the room as well so… Winning!
We were going to go to Cardiff Castle for the last day but it was a lot of faffing about and after the disastrous night sleep we weren’t in the mood. Instead we decided to visit Dyffryn Gardens and Tredegar House, two NT properties on the outskirts of Cardiff. Dyffryn was very pretty and calming after our shit nights sleep. Just what the sole ordered. Tredegar claim to fame is that the gates are featured on the intro to Antiques Road Show, Here we had the final cherry on the cake of what was a really good 2 weeks when we were invited behind the scenes. The manager came to ask for help from someone I was helping as she’d just found a piano they didn’t know they had. When I said ‘Oh can we have a look’ without hesitation she said yes!
What are my thoughts on Wales… I don’t think I saw a single pot hole despite driving down roads that in Devon would be more hole than tarmac. The roads were also wider and tidier and keep in mind we did venture off the beaten track especially on the way up. In fact the whole place seemed ‘tidy’. I’m sure like everywhere there are bad bits and when someone says about where you live “This is nice” the archetypal response is alway “It’s a shit hole”, but the Wales we saw certainly wasn’t. I think this is the result of having a Labour government and up until Brexit having a shit ton of EU money thrown at it. I’m sure a large proportion of the people in Wales don’t feel this way but trust me, if you ventured out you’d see how good you have/had it. The recent election result gives me hope that the people of Wales might see that and the lies being peddled by populists are exactly that. The biggest compliment I can give is that we both want to return to Wales. I also liked the 20mph speed limit. Prove me wrong.
In other news I won a raffle prize! I bought some tickets at the Book Fair and won lunch for 2 at Johns in Appledore. Whilst it didn’t make up for my car (which I still don’t have back) it did mitigate it a bit. It was ok… especially with the ‘super sauce’ of free. At the very last gasp of October we went to Beyond Van Gogh in Exeter which was similar to the light show we saw at Exeter Cathedral at the beginning of the year. Not as good though.
What a month! I’ve left out so much. When I was sat in Giovanni’s In The Bay in Cardiff having a proper lasagne because the one I had in the Antelope Inn in Bangor was so disgusting (see stuff like that) I thought to myself, if we’d done a similar thing in another country you’d be thinking what an amazing once in a lifetime adventure. I’m reminded about the quote from Simon Reeves about the importance of having adventures…
It doesn’t matter if it’s the other side of the world or on your own doorstep
Simon Reeve
One last bit. I’ve decided that like Cato The Elder who ended every speech with ‘Carthago delenda eta’ or ‘Carthage must be destroyed’ I shall end every post here with ‘Anyone But Reform’…
My Average Holidays 
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