Maggie & Mal's Adventures in North Cyprus, the UK and Beyond
Bargain – Boots Discount codes and also 12gift experiences for £20.12
A day of washing, ironing and sorting things out before we pack up. We did watch some of the Olympics, we seem to be going further and further down the medal table.
The picture is of our tiny car and of course I have heard nothing from Easycar! Mal calls it “the skip” every time we go out in it!
Bargain – Techair Notebook Rucksack, only £6.29!
Happy Birthdays today to both my nieces Julie and Wendy and also Happy Birthday to Tariq, who is now 13.
We started the day by ringing Tariq before we set off on our next bit of sightseeing! Mal was determined to cover our £57 we paid for the English Heritage membership even though we have another 15 months! We did stop off to say goodbye to Kerry first and then drove to Pevensey Castle. I can’t say we were over impressed with that one. We found it difficult to follow the audio tour and the dungeon was closed “due to flooding”. So, it didn’t take us long to do this one! As well as that you had to pay £2 for the car park but at least we handed over our ticket to the next person entering the car park! Oh and it seems most of the English Heritage sites have ghosts or so they say!
From here we drove on to Battle, a place we love and have visited often. Whilst doing the tourist bit around the battlefield and Battle Abbey, we were also fortunate enough to join a tour of Battle Independant School in the grounds, as it was the school holidays. They have a very impressive painting of the battle and also an impressive library.
If you visit here and you are a member of English Heritage, the parking (normally £3.50) is £1 by purchasing a token in the Abbey shop, something that wasn’t made very clear.
We then drove back to the caravan, the slow route, through all the lovely Kent villages.
Bargain – Another North Cyprus Bargain holiday
We left the George Hotel just as soon as we could in the morning. There was no one around even if we had wanted to complain, I guess they were keeping a very low profile!
In a quest to visit more English Heritage sites, we then drove on to Portchester Castle. I have to say that is well worth a visit.
From there we headed on to Brighton and had plans to meet up with Martina and Kerry (Mal’s eldest son). We stayed in a hotel opposite Preston Park and so it was a walk through the park to the Park View where we met Kerry and Martina. We had a nice evening in there and then went back to theirs for coffee.
Bargain – HALF PRICE Patio set
We left Cardiff and drove to Stonehenge. We decided we could fit in a few more sightseeing trips this visit and so joined English Heritage (£57), which on this day saved us £14. We have both been to Stonehenge before and walked amongst the stones but not this time, they are now all roped off. That was disappointing but we did the audio tour which was really interesting.
We had booked into the George Hotel in Amesbury for the night. We wished we hadn’t! Our room wasn’t at all clean and the shower was disgusting, full of mould. Mal put his suitcase on top of the wardrobe and when he got it down it was covered in dust! AND we payed £70 for the pleasure. We took a walk around Amesbury, there is very little there and so we ended up in The Bell for the evening, where we had dinner and drank several pitchers of Mojito followed by Fireball Cinamon Whiskey liquer, to drown our sorrows!!
Eventually we returned to the Hotel, walking I hasten to add and went to bed. They had a singer in the hotel. We had been told we wouldn’t hear it in our room…oh yes we did! We also heard the car doors banging and all the shouting at 2am when the karaoke finished! Disaster!
Another lovely day and we went to the park with the grandhcildren. The park was packed but they all had fun. We were going to take them all out for a meal in the evening but things didn’t go as planned. We had even booked a table but Mal and I ended up eating on our own.
We left Marion and Bryan’s house and spent most of the afternoon stuck on motorways behind accidents and Olympic traffic heading to Cardiff in the heat…not at all pleasant! We were shattered by the time we arrived at our hotel in Cardiff. Not a fun day at all.
Bargain – Large lightweight suitcase
More sun and warmth!
At last I have heard from Easycar with regard to Budget giving us a midgets car which is not what we paid for!
From Easycar….
“I would like to inform you that I am currently investigating the matter with Budget and I will contact you again once the issue has been resolved. It can take from five to twenty-one working days for a reply from the supplier as they may need to locate hard copies of documentation in addition to speaking to staff members who may be on regularly scheduled leave. We will endeavour to have an answer for you as soon as possible.”
Well, that’s handy then, they may have it sorted by the time we take the car back! Meanwhile we have nowhere to put our suitcases, which means in between visits we can’t leave the car unattended. If you are thinking of hiring from Easycar, bear in mind, they have no phone contact and the only way you can contact them is by email!
So we squashed our luggage into the tiny car and headed for my sisters. It was supposed to be the hottest UK day so far this year. AND we ended up sitting on the motorway behind an accident at midday for over an hour in the first hire car we have had without air con!
Eventually we arrived and Marion had delayed lunch. After lunch we went for a walk at Boulter’s Lock, Maidenhead. we had a coffee there and sat and watched the boats going through the lock.
Marion cooked us a nice dinner and we sat in the garden in the evening to eat it. Mal and Bryan sneaked off to the pub for an hour!
