We were sorry to leave Dartmouth on Wednesday morning, but
very excited to be visiting Nether Wallop again. On our way, we stopped at a
few places, including Lyme Regis, famous for many reasons and more recently the
place where much of The French Lieutenant’s
Woman was shot. We were fascinated by The Cobb, the old canons &
anchors & amazing old buildings. Not so thrilled by the beach!
We also visited Weymouth, but didn’t get out and walk
around as it was raining. Wes tells me this is the English Riviera! It reminded us both of St Kilda or Brighton in
Melbourne.
We drove through a beautiful Georgian village called
Blandford Forum, before finding ourselves at Puddletown & Tolpuddle – very
historic places indeed.
Finally we followed the signs up a little track to find the
Chettle Village Stores & stocked up on fruit, juice & bread for our
stay in The Little Trout. Imagine our
surprise when we pulled up at our beautiful accommodation, to discover that it
used to be the Wine Shop that we had seen last time we were here. Our host was
rather chuffed that we remembered it. Sadly, the pub, the Five Bells, that drew
us here the first time, is now closed & has been for the past five years.
We wonder what the squire & his Labrador do for a late afternoon drink
these days.
Our accommodation was spacious & comfortable with the
best bed & doona of our trip, an excellent bathroom with a timer in the
shower, lots of heaters & a well-stocked kitchen. We couldn’t wait to get
out and explore the next morning, but watched the Oaks Day races first!
Outside The Little
Trout
Beautiful brook over
which we crossed to visit the 11th Century Church – St Andrew’s,
which captivated us back in 1975.
Belfry & bell
pulls for the six bells of St Andrew’s
We spent ages in the Church looking at all the frescoes
that have been recovered & restored from earlier times, as well as admiring
the age of this incredible building.
We took as many Footpaths
as we could & crossed numerous stiles, said hello to horses, skirted by the
aerodrome, where bombs were dropped during the war & walked along the High
Street, looking at the houses that just scream Miss Marple. We were lucky enough to see a couple of men restoring a
thatched roof as we walked by.
After lunch we drove to nearby Stockbridge, where cars can
park easily in the main street & where we picked up some fresh salmon for
dinner at a fabulous deli.
Wes was in the mood to cook & did an excellent job of
poaching salmon with fresh tomatoes & avocado. We couldn’t fit in the
interesting cheddar we had bought, so it came with us to London. We slept well
that night & knew we would we sorry to leave on Friday morning.
We set off after 9am giving ourselves plenty of time to get
to Croydon to return the Avis hire car. Wes had planned our journey to London
& it went like clockwork. There was a light rail running behind the Avis
area & we caught it to Wimbledon. It was clean, quiet, quick &
self-driven! Our next move was a train from Wimbledon to Elephant & Castle,
then a short walk to our London flat. We arrived to find an empty key-safe
& rang our Airbnb host, Will, who claimed no responsibility initially,
before agreeing to investigate & ring us back.
Will eventually confessed he had given us the wrong address
& obviously uses the same key-codes to all his flats. We caught a cab to
our correct address as we couldn’t work out how to get there by tube. And what
a disappointment it is here. This is obviously a bachelor pad which desperately
needs TLC. It is on the 6th floor & looks out over a park, the
bedroom is spacious with plenty of storage, but everything else is a disaster
& we have to keep the windows open as it is so hot. There are no cooking
knives, one roll of toilet paper to last us a week, stained couch, a pantry
without outdated left behind foodstuffs, old stained towels & rickety
chairs. We couldn’t sleep on Friday night until we sent Will an email outlining
our concerns & to date he hasn’t replied. As far as I’m concerned that’s
the end of Airbnb overseas!
Yesterday morning, after some fresh fruit that the hunter
had found, we set off to Harrods & spent a delightful time there. I needed
to replace my Mason Pearson hairbrushes & my Harrods bag. We achieved both
of those & then saw a sign for modern Chinese food. We followed the signs
to Chai Wu & enjoyed a wonderful exotic dim sum with a pot of exquisite Jasmine
tea ball. This restored our good humour!
In the afternoon we saw the first of our 4 plays – The Wild
Duck – a modern version of Ibsen’s famous play. It was stunning & we loved
it. The Almeida Theatre is very like the Malthouse & even though we were in
the circle, we felt close to the action. Two well-known actors, Nicholas
Farrell & Nicholas Day were part of an excellent cast of eight. We
experienced our first heavy rain of the trip, but our clothes are nice &
dry this morning as Wes worked out how to turn the heated towel rack on – not easy.
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