4 October 2011 (Tuesday) - Twenty Five Years


The nice people who were also staying in the B&B had mentioned at brekkie yesterday that they’d been to Cheddar Gorge on Sunday. We got chatting this morning at brekkie: they said they’d been talking about us all day yesterday, and were wondering what we thought of Cheddar Gorge. So we told them what we’d done, and they listened with evident amazement, and perhaps a little jealousy. They asked what the caves were like; they asked what the museum was like. They asked what the climb to the lookout tower was like. They’d seen all of these attractions, but done none of them.
It turned out that we’d been to Cheddar Gorge and “done the tourist thing”, but they’d been to Cheddar Gorge and looked in some of the shops before going back home to the B&B. How can you travel several hundred miles to somewhere like Cheddar Gorge and not do the tourist things?
Mind you, they were a funny pair. We saw them come into the pub last night when we were having dinner, and we saw them leave again, having had two drinks each. Apparently there was nothing on the menu that they liked, so they thought they’d try somewhere else. And not having a clue where else to eat, they got quite lost trying to find somewhere. But then again he smothered his full English breakfast with vinegar (!)

The plan for today had us calling in at some touristy place on the way home, but a combination of the weather being awful, and there being no English Heritage attractions in the Basingstoke area put paid to that little scheme. So we just came home. Once home I caught up with blogs and stuff. The guest house had free wi-fi, but for some reason when I post blogs from my lap-top, the formatting is absolutely awful. So having got cross with the lap-top last night, I did all the internet-catch-up when we got home this afternoon.

I then popped up town to pay some money into the bank. There was probably a tad more in the astro club’s petty cash than was sensible to have as petty cash. The astro club’s account isn’t with my bank, and I went in to that bank, read their posters, and decided to move my accounts to them: they seemed to be offering such a good deal. Then I actually dealt with the awkward old bat on the counter, and I came out having decided to see if we can’t more the astro club account away from them to my bank.
I then went to my bank, and bearing in mind how surly and uncommunicative was the old misery-guts behind that counter, I resolved to give up with banks entirely, and to keep all the cash in a biscuit tin under my bed.

So I came home and phoned English Heritage to have a whinge. After all, they’d locked us into Old Wardour Castle on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t really mind, it was quite funny really.
But I’m (still) able to clamber over walls. Your average castle visitor probably isn’t as sprightly as me, and whilst I don’t really want to stir trouble, someone somewhere (at Old Wardour Castle) needs to check that all the punters are out at closing time. They said they’d look into it and get back to me.

And then we watched last Saturday’s “Doctor Who”… Bearing in mind it was going to be a “River Song” episode I was expecting the worst: she’s not my favourite character in the show. But I was pleasantly surprised at the episode. Not bad at all.
The evening was spent in committee making plans for Saturday evening. The moon doesn’t observe itself, you know….

And in closing I’m sure that today’s date rings a bell for some reason…..

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