Thursday 9th June 2022

All good things come to an end, even our trip to Wales.

I woke up with a raspy throat, meaning that I probably have caught the cold from Jools, and that combined with a slight hangover to make the early morning especially memorable.

But not for the best of reasons.

And on top of that, we had to pack, load the car and then drive home.

The weather mocked us, endless sunshine flooded in through the skylights, and there was me thinking how fine the orchids would look in the sunshine.....

But we have to go home. And breaks the cats free from prison.

So, lets get it on!

Downstairs at half seven for breakfast. And although I like a cooked breakfast as well as anyone, the seventh morning in a row with one, and I was longing for some fruit, or something lighter.

The radio burbled on something inane. The pub has "Greatest Hits Radio" on all the time, and it seems this is where the dross DJs from Radio 1 from the 80s earn their pennies now. A constant round of Wham, Queen, Simply Red and the worst of the decade you thought you'd forgotten. All interspersed with dreadful radio ads, peppered with sound effects if you didn't know what a key turning in a lock sounds like. And quizzes. As the quiz to guess the drum beat from some ancient hit record has been going on the six days we heard it, and went unguessed the final morning, so we will never know what song it was.

I am happy to live with that.

We load the car, carrying our stuff down two steep and winding sets of stairs, across the car park and into the car. I pay the bill, Bob and I hug, Cath comes out and hugs me too. Its been a good stay.

I set the sat nave for home: 235 miles.

I reverse the car and we drive out of the car park for the last time.

We were being guided to Shrewsbury, but an accident meant the road was closed, so we followed a train of four cars and a van down a series of narrow lanes until we got back to Knockin, and from there to the A5.

It was a grand morning, and once on the M54, going was easy, and we ate the miles up.

The plan had been to head down the M6 Toll, but we saw no signs to it, and so we were funelled onto the concrete car park that is the M6 though Walsall and Birmingham. Ten miles took an hour, stop start, stop start. But we did keep moving, if not very quickly.

But it did get moving, and we sped up to fifty and then sixty, cruising along in the sunshine.

I ignored the sat nav and took us along the A14 to Cambridge. A good road, though heavily used by trucks, but we made good time and soon we were bakc in East Anglia, hammering down the newly opened link road between the A1 and M11, so new its not on the car's sat nav map, so it appeared we were driving at seventy across fields.

We stopped at Stanstead for fuel and supplies. Just about halfway done, and now just the Darford Crossing to get through. Though the jams that we were warned about had seemed to have melted away, so we cruised down to the River and across the bridge without breaking stride, then down the M20 to home.

We did stop off at a site to see the Tongue Orchid. I mean, you didn't think I was going to have an orchid free day, did you?

Three spikes there now, though not looking too good as though something had been dropped on them. I take shots anyway, then we drove back to the motorway and bacl home. The 35 miles of queueing trucks had gone, and work is underway to remover the Operation Brock contraflow.

But not yet.

We got home, no cats of course, we couldn't get them until the morning. We had bought milk on the way down, so we could have a brew.

Then it was time to unload the car, put the first load of washing in, put the clean stuff away, and I went to Tesco to get a few things to tide us over, me nipping round before schools finished for the day and the store would be filled with the little darlings.

Back home, and my occasional cough was becomming more frequent.

Oh well.

I made us dinner, Caprese with a store-bought focaccia loaf. I opened a bottle of wine, Jools had a cider.

We were shattered.

But home.

Travel may broaden the mind, but home gladdens the heart.

And tomorrow we get the cats back.