The Journey Home

After a wonderful meal last night and a delightful sleep with a cool fan making the bedroom a tolerable temperature in the midst of this heatwave, I woke up at 5.30am and edited some of Friday's photos but didn't manage to get them all done by the time Drew awoke at 6.15am and I made a cup of tea for Drew and I.

I showered, shaved and brushed my teeth, then Drew bathed and did his ablutions. By 7.15am we were ready to go down for breakfast but restrained ourselves until the official opening time of 7.30am.

Breakfast

The breakfast at Whatley Manor provides a wide selection of items to eat.

There is a table full of delectable items, seen from various angles below:

We began with orange juice for both of us and tea, for me and coffee, for Drew along with wholemeal toast for me and white toast for Drew.

Drew choose a Yogurt with Honey and Apple

while I tested the kitchen by ordering porridge the Scottish way with just hot water and salt cooked with the oats. The hotel's menu had suggested it with milk, honey and whipped Crème fraîche, but were more than happy to make it the way I like it.

For our second course we had similar breakfast, neither of us liking baked beans, but loving everything else. I had my egg fried 'over hard' and Drew had his eggs scrambled.

The sausage was juicy, the black pudding rich, the bacon beautifully salty and the eggs cooked to perfection. A wonderful meal.

Homeward Bound

We went back up to the room after breakfast and completed our packing before leaving Whatley Manor at 8:50am for the 58-mile journey home. 

The journey was uneventful. 

Final Charge 

We arrived back in Tongwynlais and took advantage of the BP Pulse charger at the Holiday Inn at the end of the village to top the car up. It is 83.2 miles since the last charge in Trowbridge. 

Another advantage of the Holiday Inn as a charging place is that they serve Starbucks in the hotel, so we sat and ended out holiday with good coffee. 

Why charge the car before going home I hear you ask. Well, that means I can charge it to the Holiday Budget rather than the regular household budget. I know I could do that anyway, but it is the principle that counts. 

So, this is the end of the holiday. But it is worth noting, especially for our regular readers, that this isn't the last trip we will be doing this year.

An extension for this blog

Having completed the Cardiff Half Marathon last March, Drew was really tempted by the Copenhagen Half Marathon. [Co-pilot's notes: I believe dear readers, that the true reason will become apparent in about 44 words.]

As we planned to visit Scandanavia in 2020 and due to Covid we never got there, I thought it would be good to combine a visit to Denmark's capital with Drew given that, as well as being a famous city, it is also Scandinavia's foodie capital.

So, this blog will have an extended life and in Mid-September will reappear with Copenhagen as its destination - even though the blog's title will remain the same. 

We are staying at the Axel Guldsmeden hotel in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen and have already booked four restaurants for the nine nights we are there. 

So, I hope to see many of you with us again then. Though people looking for half marathon tips might not find the blog a useful guide.