"Not interested." Fair enoughski.
"It'll be fun and cheap." I chirped. I'd done the return trip calculations by car and the fuel cost was huge.
"Not for me it won't. It involves shopping." His logic was flawless. With the Clarke's Shopping Village and the Bath Christmas Market featured heavily either side of St Austell, I'd need long arms and deep pockets so I booked myself on a three day treat and arranged for Them Next Door to ensure Alphonse had regular meals and a fresh litter tray while I was on tour.
I'm a coach tours novice and being a tad claustrophobic when I can't fly myself, I was hoping for an aisle seat so imagine my horror on discovering that window seat No.37 had trapped me next to a big bloke who left me with no wriggle-room. I couldn't have wished for a nicer chap who had only come along to help his elderly parents, but he had sleep apnoea and snored a lot every time we hit a motorway. So on the way from home to Market Harborough, Kettering, Wellingborough and Northampton, I developed a new form of yoga to practice in very confined spaces and cursed myself for not packing some TEDs anti-deep vein thrombosis stockings. At least there was no singing of Vera Lynne classics on the way.
Surveying my fellow travellers, I felt there would be at least one person I could bond with and joy, I found Sue and her husband Roy in the seats behind mine. Like teenage rebels, we took to using our cameras to snap everything that moved from meals, including this glorious bucket of soup and doorstep bread slathered with Cornish butter:
Granted our digs weren't as bad as Fawlty Towers but purely out of disbelief, I videoed the Saniflow because the goddam thing kept me awake most of the first night. I must pack ear plugs if I'm ever going to do this again. Still, sleeping in a strange nest is always a bit difficult at first. I don't allow technology in the upper reaches of the home nest unless it's an alarm clock so I found the intrusion of a television in my shoe-box sized accommodation to be a real nuisance in the dark. Although on the Sunday morning, enjoying my first cup of tea on the concrete bed, I watched a stupid film about a man who after drinking a lot of a very expensive wine imagined himself as a dog. Sam Neill as a canine had me howling! There was also the problem of the strong adhesive smell, apparently brought on by the management having just stuck down the flooring in the bathroom. Helpfully, they'd opened the windows in the vain hope that I hadn't noticed. I had because my beak is very sensitive. I also couldn't help noticing the two inch gap in the ill fitting door which looked like a light-sabre in the room when the lights were out. I really couldn't miss the huge, framed Vogue covers circa 1991 of the world's highest paid supermodels of the time adorning the walls to distract our vision from the eye-watering pattern on the carpets. Now I know Naomi Campbell hasn't looked like that for a decade.
Over the full English breakfast serving downstairs in a dungeon of a restaurant, we swopped snaps and howled at the images. Sue, giggling like a teenager, had photographed every bit of their bedroom from the mouldy patch inside the wardrobe door and the two pound coins they discovered under the bad, to the word 'DUST' written in the dust on the top of the wardrobe. Don't ask me how or why she was up there, it had something to do with the TV remote apparently. And what, we discussed, could improve our stay at this peculiar hotel; a polyglot of buildings with dodgy plumbing seemingly bolted to a Torquay hillside?
"A facelift?" quipped Sue.
"Closing for a year and gutting?" ventured Roy.
"An Exocet missile?" forever optimistic Raven.
I could rattle on about our journey home but I slept through the dull bit from Torquay to the outskirts of Bath, at least until driver Barry turned off the motorway and onto some dubious B roads, obviously some kind of demonic SatNav challenge he'd not told us about. We went through one Somerset hill village and terrified a bloke washing his car, who jumped back as our tour bus squeaked past his wing mirror. What seemed like a lifetime later, I finally met up with Grimy and January near Bath's famous Abbey and instead of browsing the famous Christmas Market, we headed for the pub to get away from the crowds. A word to the wise if you're going this weekend, get some bovver boots because the stalls are three-deep and you'll never get to see most of it. I ended up hiding in Lakeland and filling my basket with Dr Who novelty items to keep me entertained over the festive break; along with a DIY marmalade kit for Alphonse but don't tell him yet.
Y'know, I had a lovely time and met some great folk. I also met some real moan-a-lots too. And days later when it came to filling in the survey sheet for Diamond Holidays I was aghast at one question. "If we could improve anything, what would it be?" My first thought was 'you could have arranged for it to snow at The Eden Project and for Bath to have more public loos.' My written answer was honest and truthful.
"What are you asking me for? This is your business and you should know where there's room for improvement. Why don't you take a tour or two yourself and stop asking stupid questions?"
There, I said it.
Tip of the Beak: Remember I mentioned a wasps nest that has been causing us some problems? I sort of calmed down when I realised The Eden Project have a much bigger problem with such things than we ever will. Please go soon and support their charitable work. It's fabulous.
