Morse

Morse
Morse & friend

Sunday, 11 November 2018

England Autumn Dispatch - Sunday, 11th November 2018



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.

No comments:

Post a Comment