Maybe I should just resolve never to travel by road on a Friday evening? I mean it never goes well does it?
Before leaving the office I check the Travel England website and sure enough everywhere is plastered in warning notes. As I drive and the traffic reports cut in on the radio, it seems like I’ve made some good choices – the roadworks around Stoke aren’t too bad whereas it sounds like the M6 and Birmingham are generally are in meltdown. The M1 appears to be suffering accident after accident so I’ve done well to avoid that as well. So whilst my route is busy and the going somewhat slow at times all is going reasonably ok until I get east of the M1. Stuck on a single carriageway not having moved more than 500 yards 40 minutes the frustration kicks in. Big time.
Eventually I crawl level with a side turning and after a quick consult of the map, decide to go for it. Anything must be better surely?
Unfortunately I’m now on the kind of minor country road that doesn’t even feature on a road atlas, but hey, I know the rough direction I want and it’s better than sitting in solid traffic. Sat Nav is for wimps – this is the way to do it, window down, roof open, free-ranging.
Somehow (and please don’t ever ask me to explain how) I make it through and onto the delights of the Holiday Inn Peterborough. Caroline tells me that Sally has gone for a swim and that feels like the perfect way to rid myself of the journey stress.
And it is blissful to feel the day wash away, even if the 10m long pool barely caters for serious swimming.
Caroline joins us poolside and in her usual wicked manner threatens occasionally to wheel poolwards. The three of us chat and gossip and kick off our girlie weekend in appropriate style.
Between us, Sally and I demonstrate the twin options of the myopic swimmer. Sally opts for lenses out and can’t see a bloody thing, I opt for lenses in (strange pool and I don’t want to accidentally get the male changing room or something…I mean what would be the point if I couldn’t see anything…) and highly unattractive goggles.
All dried off we head to Caroline’s palatial suite for more giggling, catching up and room service amusement, a catalogue of errors and disappointments, of which I will mention just one.
What does it take to make three grown women shake with laughter so much that they lose all ability for function for several minutes? The answer is simple; get Caroline to order Sticky Toffee Pudding on room service, leave it to one side, whilst you all eat your main course and then watch Caroline attempt to eat the pudding. As this video clip will testify (honest to God we have not added sound effects), moist it was not…
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5 comments:
Oh eck....
Note to self. Never ever ever resort to reading Liz's blog in parish office, even if your home PC is being thoroughly unreasonable, and refuses to acknowledge that the internet even exists. It can only end badly.
If I mention Sally and car parks, you'll appreciate what I mean!
And then I had to cycle home!
Whoops! Sorry K.
(I was careful not to make S laugh too much whilst we were swimming...you'll appreciate why).
Excuse me girls, a lot of people read these blogs..do you mind?? I don't want everyone knowing..... I am sitting up in bed watching the video over and over.. it brings it all back..and the giggling is so infectious......thank you Liz!!!
The bit that gets me is the giggling at the end and the fact I know I had to stop filming at that point because I had tears rolling down my cheeks and was shaking with laughter...very hard to keep a phone steady in that condidition you know...you can see it start to go as I lose it.
Good times :-D
I played this video to son and husband last night. I was giggling all the way through it. They watched it in silence...both looked at me in a pitying sort of way and went, Yeeees.....adn that was it. Why have my family and i not got the same sense of hummour? Why do they always make me feel like they just feel sorry for me????
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