Part 2 - The journey begins
Let's have a look at that happened after that lovely drive along Bournmonth Promenade
Day 2 - Tuesday the 5th July
Day 2 was a scheduled R&R (Rest and Relocate) day. So bit of a lie in, leisurely breakfast, bacon, sausages, hash browns, beans and mushrooms. Followed by toast and Marmite. I am travelling with my own 500g jar of Marmite in case the hotels do not provide it!
Although this is a rest day I am driving one of the Mercedes Sprinter Luton vans to the next hotel which is at Cookham near Maidenhead. Left Swindon hotel around 12 noon with Tiana (one of the chaperones) as passenger and arrived at Cookham by 13:30. Hotel is in very nice setting close to the river Thames. After unloading the two Luton vans myself and 3 of the hosts decided to have a 5-minute walk down to the village to get a late lunch. Fish and Chips all round and very nice it was too.
In the evening we had a team meal, which was very nice, as it was Chicken and Fish (which I don’t eat) or cheese pizza (which I have to avoid as much as possible as it gives me migraine) the chef cooked me a vegetable pasta dish.
I’ve attached some photos of the hotel and the fish ponds.
The hotel in Plymouth was very good, nothing odd about it at all. However the next hotel in Swindon was something else entirely. It wasn’t actually in Swindon at all, nearer to Marlborough in open countryside. Mid-afternoon it suffered a complete power failure and they thought the hotel would have to be closed which should have been a major problem for the relay finding rooms for 80 crew at very short notice. Luckily the power was restored around 7pm and they were they able to provide hot food. I could not get the hang of the layout at all it was totally baffling. I had room 177 on the ground floor which was the very last room on a corridor that made a square. So the room at the end, mine, was actually very close to the point where the first room was, but there was no linking corridor. To get from reception, restaurant or bar I had to walk the whole length of the corridor past the other 176 rooms!
The next hotel would have been the Holiday Inn in Guildford, but there was a shortage of rooms so Trevor and myself were sent to a Holiday Inn in Woking a 20-minute drive away. It was gone 23:30 when we arrived, we parked the minibus outside under the reception canopy as it was too high to go in the underground parking! When we got in our room it had one bed, so we had to wait while the housekeeper produced a second bed. However, by 00:30 we able to get to bed. We were up at 05:30 to get back to Guildford for breakfast at 06:30.
I was offered the choice between sharing a room in the main hotel or having a single room in the overflow hotel, which meant an extra 15-minute drive each way – so I choose the single room option. The Briudgewood Manor Hotel was very nice as was the main hotel the Holiday Inn at Tonbridge.
The next nights hotel was Dunston Hall near Norwich this is very impressive. Very nice buildings beautiful setting too and very nice choice of evening meal in the outdoor marquee. Weston Manor in Northampton was another one that was an absolute maze, first hotel I’ve ever stayed in (and I stayed in a lot hotels abroad when I was working) where room 413 was on the ground floor in a totally different part to the rooms in the 100 range. There is a video of the route from my room to the breakfast room.
The Olde Barnes and Travel Lodge at Grantham were very straightforward in comparison.
Having to move hotel every day means you have to be very organised with the unpacking and packing, keeping your crew bag tidy, only taking out what you need immediately and keeping everything else packed. A set routine is important as is having a system for checking nothing is left behind; phone chargers, USB leads and sponge bags being the most common things to go missing.
<End of Day 2 and Hotel Reflections. More to follow shortly>
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