Five weeks later

Well have I had a couple of really nice and relaxing days? Yes and No. The placed we stayed (Burlton Inn), was lovely, the accommodation was very clean and more than enough for our stay, plus being separate from the actual pub, and each suite having it's own front door,  you felt you could come and go as you pleased. The food, however, was amazing, we had breakfast included in the price and ate both our evening meals there. It's all local produce and incredibly well cooked and presented, and Neil had Toblerone cheesecake for a pudding, again completely homemade by the chef, unbelievable. I now have to work out how to bake camembert cheese to give my kids a taste of the starter we had. The only downside to the pub was being a real eating place it was all tables and chairs for that purpose, not the sort of pub you felt you could just spend all evening in drinking, mind you they didn't have any really interesting cider and only a couple of real ales, plus we were too tired to do that anyway, so it didn't really matter.

The No, side to the relaxing has to be that on Thursday, after having booked into the pub, we went to Ellesmere a pretty little place, walked around a bit and had lunch. If you like lakes and don't fancy the trip to the lake district it's like a mini version in that area. Anyway then we went to Oswestry, walked around a lot, and then made our way back to the pub for a rest and then dinner. On Friday we went to Wrexham, not knowing quite what to expect, but actually the town centre is architecturally very interesting, as long as you look up (as you always should in any town), like a lot of town centres at the moment it has it's fair share of empty shops, and pound shops, but overall it was quite pretty, we walked all round the town, then had lunch in the Wetherspoons (Neil does like his real ale). We then travelled to a local National Trust property called Erddig (pronounced Erthig) Hall, it's not that big but is an incredibly interesting house, a really good example of upstairs/downstairs life (the name of a module I'm doing in semester 2) and the gardens are maintained beautifully. My only complaint was that we felt shunted through the house a little quick by the staff, possibly something that doesn't happen in quieter times (why am I here in the 6 week holiday I ask myself?). So we walked all round the house and a great deal of the gardens, it's definitely worth a visit, and they do a quiz/trail thing for kids too, which is always a good idea. After that we went to Whitchurch, we walked round there a bit, and wish we hadn't bothered, the only interesting shops shut at 4 o'clock, very strange, so back in the car we went to go (home) to the pub. 

Now anyone with kids will understand that leaving your kids at home alone, even with a mate, you want to be able to check that they are ok, this became an interesting task. Neither of us had any kind of phone signal at the pub, but they did have a Wi-Fi connection. Great so we got the code and logged on the first evening to the internet and I messaged Will via Facebook, not that I was holding my breath for a reply but it was a start. I also messaged Bens Mum (Claire) who had Xander for me, I was much more hopeful there, I told her about the lack of signal, but I wasn't too worried. Then we got into our room and discovered that the Wi-Fi didn't work that far away from the pub, oops, but if you sat up in bed and held your phone as high up as you could (standing next to the bed did not work), you could get just enough signal to get a text message out. Which I then did again to Will (with no real hope) and Claire explaining now about the Wi-Fi and the tiny phone signal. This strange combination of text and facebook enabled us to ensure everyone was fine. OK the dog broke the TV cabinet, but something always has to happen, so that's an acceptable loss.

So here I am back home after my "relaxing break", I'm totally exhausted but we did have a good time, and I won't lie I did enjoy all the eating out. I suppose I even quite enjoyed the travelling, once we were there, some of the countryside in that area is quite beautiful. But, like most travellers, I am glad to be home, and will sleep better in my own bed, sad but true. Hang on does this mean I'm back to doing all the cooking again, damn, that is a blow!