Pleasant Stay

We are very blessed to have a hotel three minutes from our house, which was just renovated, and had connecting rooms to offer us. They said they couldn't guarantee it (even on the day we were to arrive), but we prayed and God was so kind as to answer favorably. I find it makes a big difference when travelling as a family, to be able to walk from one room to the other in pajamas or to borrow each other's bathrooms conveniently, or to quietly check if the kids are still asleep in the morning, etc. So I am thankful. Our hotel has beautiful hanging baskets of flowers and cheerful window planter boxes adorning the exterior. When we first arrived, the stairwell sported a delicious aroma of roast gammon and maple syrup (with which gammon is sometimes glazed).

Last week was Royal Ascot Week here in England, the time of the year which is known internationally for horse racing and fancy clothes (since Queen Anne in 1711), and known locally for crowds, huge traffic jams and a lot of drunk people staggering around due to too much champagne flowing (300,000 people, 170,000 bottles of champagne, 160,000 pints of beer, 18,000 punnets of strawberries, 10,000 lobsters). We had to rethink plans to go out to eat on the outskirts of Ascot due to the queues of cars heading that way. We backtracked and chose a nice place closer to home. Not far enough from Ascot, however, to lack specially hired temporary bouncers at the door, and some very fancy outfits wandering in, hats and all. It was fun to see both the bouncers and the flamboyant dress. We were also intrigued, in an unrelated way, by the fact that at least 4 of the waitstaff in this particular restaurant were from South Africa (this is the Belvedere Arms on the Northern arm of London Road, Erika, in case you are interested!).

On another night that week, we met with friends for a farewell barbeque in Sunninghill, a neighbouring town to Ascot, and one member of the group decided it was better to walk 40 minutes from his house through Ascot than to try to navigate the traffic in a car. I'm sure he was right. He and his son definitely got some good exercise on the way there and home, and scored some entertaining people-watching as well, most likely.