Our overnight stay at The Raven Hotel, part of the Old English chain, was a very pleasant one. The original building, erected the year Queen Victoria died, has been extended to take more guests. Clean, very well appointed, and supplied with all the necessities, the room was perfect. Particularly noteworthy were the acoustics, lending complete clarity to every sound from the room next door, the corridor, and the street outside. It may even have been a pin that was occasionally dropped by our neighbours. There was a modern looking television which we didn’t try. On the radio Jackie was able to receive local radio pop music and ‘Talk Sport’. She would have preferred Radio 4.
Joking aside, we slept very well.
Breakfast was served in a large, well equipped dining room by most friendly and attentive young staff. We were certainly not the only customers present. From the accents there had been a Geordie wedding. One very young, very skinny, very blonde, very brown, woman spent the whole time alternately hitching up her shoulders to keep her lacy, see-through, poncho styled, white, off both shoulders, top garment in place. Or maybe she was attempting to dislodge it all together. Either way it was entertaining.
The attentiveness and efficiency of the staff was displayed when the young lady pouring our coffee overfilled my cup, the contents spilling into the saucer. She was a bit discombobulated as I picked up the saucer and began to tip its contents into the cup. She offered to fetch me a fresh saucer. ‘No, thanks’, I replied, ‘this is what we do at home’. A young man was there in a flash with a thick paper napkin. The food was plentiful and well cooked. Naturally we each had full Englishes, which contained some of the best breakfast sausages I have tasted.
At £40 per night through the Late Bookings website, both the hotel and the website are to be heartily recommended.
After pottering in our room for a while, we made our leisurely way to visit Wolf and Luci in their static caravan in Hurley. The day was as enjoyable as usual, covering many subjects of conversation and reminiscing over more than forty years of friendship. Luci fed us on a tasty lamb stew followed by a delicious fruit crumble. She and I shared a very good bottle of the appropriately named Wolf Blass; and she demonstrated her assiduous reading of this blog, and her intrepidness in searching it out locally, by presenting Jackie with a large bottle of Hoegaarden.
We made very good time home, where I added a couple of photographs to yesterday’s post.
