The Dudley at Coombe Abbey

Barbados, as we’ve discovered since we’ve been here, is often called Little England. That’s not so surprising, though the architecture and decor are miles apart. You’ll know how much I’m a fan of and enjoy colour, well Barbados delivers on all of that. The bright colours though, don’t seem to work back home so much, just as the traditional decor from our relatively recent visit to Coombe Abbey in Warwickshire would look out of place in the Caribbean.

Both work, in their own environments. Here’s some more from our mediaeval banqueting weekend, mostly of our room - the Dudley.

We’d left it later than we should have to book, and so ended up booking more than the basic room. Usually MOH would have known this wasn’t a good thing, but even if he did when we arrived in the room and were met with our own spiral staircase he just might have been forgiven.

We’ll come back to what’s at the top of the stairs later though. First, drink in the grandeur of the decor, the swags of the curtains and the mock canopy over the bed. They’re about as traditional as you can get…

Upstairs was also traditional, and a tad extravagant. A roll top bath took pride of place, with a generous sized room to itself.

A pile of stones in one corner of the room was slightly odd though, or at least I thought so.

We were only there for one night, and there was a delay to our room being available, so we weren’t able to take full advantage of all it could offer. We spent the evening celebrating my BIL’s half-century birthday at the medieval banquet, and while they worked that out in the end, that too was disorganised and chaos for our party.

Personally I think the hotel had too much going on, with banquets and weddings, and just weren’t organised enough to cope. We may just have been unlucky, arriving at a particularly busy time, who knows.

Throughout the hotel the decor matched the ambience it promised, and with my gown with the never ending sleeves (seriously, they touched the floor) it was easy to believe we’d been transported back in time.

Perhaps, that is, until we encountered this:

Reflecting on my week #109

Travelling, and time differences, make for a long day. But it’s worth it, and despite knowing the temperatures we were heading for we weren’t really prepared for the moment we stepped off the plane.

It was like a lovely warm hug, as was the welcome at the hotel. Though it’s still strange to see Christmas decorations in the warm weather, and my brain is having quite a few “does not compute” moments.

The case obviously got packed, though not everything survived the final cull. I am claiming a packing win though as we were just half a kilo under the limit I was aiming for. There’s some debate as to the limit though, MOH randomly thinks 25kg, whereas I thought 23. We made both, whichever it was.

I messed up checking in (oops) leaving it too late to get seats together, or even in the same row. The seats allocated were also ‘middle’ seats and we boarded the plane full of trepidation of what awaited us. Turns out we had no cause for worry, as we sat with a lovely family who as we reached our seats asked if we’d mind terribly swapping to the aisle seats so each parent could sit with a child.

There were absolutely no complaints from us, on either the seat swap or row sharing and it made for a great start to our break. In fact it was one of the best flights we can remember in quite a while, even though I managed to spill chocolate from my ice cream, and later mango chutney from my coronation chicken sandwich down my top.

Just as well I had more than a capsule wardrobe in the case.

There will need to be some careful redistribution for our return journey though, as we know there’ll be more that needs to be in the case. I’d already thought about this and our hand luggage was relatively empty on the way out, which it won’t be for the journey home!

It’s been good to take some time to just chill and embrace the heat, which even for MOH who’s not a natural sun person, has meant views like the one below, and plenty of reading.

There’s been some rain, torrential downpours which disappear as quickly as they arrive. And let’s face it, the rain is warm and not comparable to rain at home.

There’s been a rum (or two), with a bottle of Mount Gay making it into our first shopping basket, along with other essentials for breakfasts. Just to be clear, the rum isn’t for breakfast! Or at least that’s not the plan.

We’re close to the Oistins Fish Fry and though tired on Friday we headed there for some flying fish, macaroni pie, plantains and rice and peas, which were just as good as we remembered them. We were back there again over the weekend for some fishcakes, which were as good as the bag says.

Yesterday we met up with my parents for lunch, as you do. Their trip overlapped with ours for the day, and we also had the chance to look around their ship, well obviously not theirs, but you know what I mean.

Then it was time for more rum punch, on the pool deck with carols from the local primary school - I’m starting to get the hang of this Christmas in the sunshine thing, though as MOH says I shouldn’t get too used to it.

Our evening ended with more cocktails in the bar, and then cheese on toast made in our kitchenette - because we’re classy like that!

Post Comment Love 13-15 December

Hello there and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - and the last one of 2019. We’re a friendly linky where you can link any post published in the last week. Both Suzanne and I know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love.

We’ll be back in the New Year on Friday 10 January, which sounds like an awful long time away but no doubt it’ll be here before we know it.

I’m writing this post watching the election results come in, and can’t help but wonder what the drama that seems to be UK politics recently will take us next. Who knows, and by the time we’re back again in January we might know more, or maybe not.

In the meantime though there’s Christmas and New Year to get done, both of which are much more preferable than politics. I hope you have a great time with friends and families and thank you for supporting this linky, and my blog this year.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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