Monday 4 July 2011

HI ISSY THANKS FOR YOUR MESSAGE - WE ARE GOOD BUT WE MISS YOU ALL. ALSO THANKS MUM FOR YOUR MESSAGE IT WAS REALLY GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU. YOU WOULD LOVE SOME OF THE PLACES WE HAVE BEEN TO, ESPECIALLY THE GARDENS WHICH ARE GORGEOUS. IN STRATFORD ON AVON THERE WERE SUCH BEAUTIFUL ROSES WHICH HAD THE MOST DELICIOUS SMELL. KEEP WELL, LOVE FROM US BOTH. J

I now know where Mary Mary Quite Contrary comes from! Last night I spent some time (make that lots of time) planning today’s route to Chester, avoiding motorways and taking the most straightforward way there. I wrote down all the main towns we would be headed for and felt quite good that I had it all under control. Mary had other ideas. To start with we were on the right highway and I kept looking out for places along the way but for some reason I couldn’t find any recognisable ones. That was because we were headed in the opposite direction! When we got to the M5 and Mary said take the motoway I told Kev “No don’t do that its not right” so we went around the roundabout a bit further but couldn’t find any signposts that looked right. By this time Mary was having a hissy fit and kept saying “recalculate route, recalculate route”. It was a seriously big roundabout and eventually after about 16 exits (I may be exaggerating slightly) we did take the motorway as instructed. Mary calmed down a bit then I think she has a bit of a bossy problem – BLOODY MARY - and she took us all the way by motorway – which was not what I wanted but I confess I met my match. That and the fact that Kevin sided with her as he would rather drive on motorways than on some of these one lane roads that we have been on so far – funny man! We did get there and bless her heart, Mary dropped us right outside the B&B door – which was very impressive! The B&B hostess was kind enough to let us take our bags up to our room even though it wasn’t quite ready and within 10 minutes we were high tailing it down the hill towards a cold one! The B&B is really lovely and we have the biggest bed so far. That’s not hard though as most beds we have had have been double – not queen and they have never heard of king beds.

Got a table at a pub by the River Dee – lovely and we had a bit of shade. The beer was good and the prawns were equally good. Afterwards we went and got tickets for the hop on hop off bus and added trip up the River Dee. We decided to do the river trip first so took off and they meandered up river for 15 minutes and turned around and the commentary started on the trip back down the river. Some stately homes and a few rowing clubs along the way. Back at the dock and the bus came along almost immediately. We went all over Chester and it amazes me as to how the bus drivers negotiate some of the streets and corners. Although in one street we met a truck who was coming down the hill – no matter the bus mounted the footpath – which wasn’t wide and proceeded to pass the truck whilst the side on the footpath was almost scraping the 10 foot high stone wall. It was awfully hot.

We finished the trip around the Chester and decided to have an ice cream so we sat under a tree down by the river and watched all of the activity going on. Lots of row boats and some paddle boats mostly loaded with young couples. We then walked back to our B&B which is about 1 mile from the centre of town. Booked a lovely restaurant just around the corner for dinner.