We've had 4 days away, which scored well on our scale for 'getting away from home', and 'relaxing', though not everything ran smoothly.
The accommodation was a simple apartment at Weston Sands ("Luxury Living in the Heart of England") a few miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon. There were 5 units in a converted barn next to a farm, overlooking fields with sheep. The idea was great, and the looked very charming, but the actual execution didn't quite succeed:
- the bedroom with 2 large windows and vertical slat blinds that let in lots of light
- the double bed mattress was lumpy and somewhat uncomfortable
- the bed frame squeaked almost every time you moved a muscle -- so not much sleep
- the living space which didn't have a window, but could have looked out on the fields
- in our ground floor apartment (the only one like it) we could hear every movement going on in the apartment above us
- there was no-one on site to correct things like a running out of loo roll part way through the week, which is just demeaning when you're a guest somewhere
- this single bedroom apartment was poor value (per person) compared to the 2- and 3-bedroom apartments in the rest of the place.
So, not great for us; we hope the other apartments were better.We also messed up, failing to bring our wash bag, our travel Scrabble, Martha's reading book, and various other small things that would have made our time a little easier. (Next time I won't try to short-circuit things by trying to go away without looking at a list I have -- I know, I know, but they do work.)The local village was Welford-on-Avon, which boasts just one shop, a church, several pubs and a weirdly tall Maypole. The food at the Four Alls was good, and relatively cheap, and the menu was simple and family-friendly. The best meal was at the Bell Inn in Welford-on-Avon, which had an extensive menu, and was quite pricey, but with quality to match. Martha was in seventh heaven to find somewhere that served 'proper' bread and butter pudding -- ie, made with bread and custard, not just a bread pudding served with custard.