Midland

The last day at the beautiful Midland.

We had sausages and bacon in their lovely restaurant underneath the pretend tree to make you feel as though you are in a garden. Of course you don’t feel as though you are in a garden really because of not having any wasps or unexpected slugs or heavy rain, but the pretend tree was lovely and we sat underneath it on the pretend garden bench and looked at the pretend flowerpots and enjoyed eating in a garden without any misadventures.

Afterwards we packed our things and marvelled at the way nothing fitted in the bags any more, somehow we seemed to be leaving with about twenty times as much stuff as we had brought.

We dumped it all with the friendly concierge, and went swimming.

It is ages since we have been in the health club at the Midland, and they have done it all up. It is beautiful, gently lit in ambient shades of blue and green, with steaming clouds of lightly scented mist hanging in the air.

Of course we loved it. There was nobody else there, which is one of the advantages of only being able to have holidays on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and especially nice was that children are not allowed. This was very irritating when we were there with dozens of children at Christmas, and wanted to dump them in the swimming pool so we could have some peace and quiet, but is a magnificent piece of well-thought-out wisdom when we were there today as a dignified middle aged couple whose children are safely shoved out of the way in boarding schools.

We tried everything. We sloshed up and down the swimming pool which was too small for exercise, but rather pleasant for being comfortably wet, and stretched our two-days-un-swum muscles very pleasurably. We sat in the bubbling-hot jacuzzi until we were pink, and then dived back in the swimming pool for the joy of the cold squeak. We tried the Thermal Suite, which turned out to be a sauna and steam room and a shower with different settings of raininess, called Caribbean Storm, and Tropical Rain and Cold Mist. We liked the last one best, and thought it should be rechristened Lake District Afternoon, although of course did not suggest it to anybody in case of getting in trouble with the Cumbria Tourist Board.

I had a shower on its hottest setting in the changing room, and tried all of the hotel’s lovely soaps, although decided in the end that none of them were as nice as my own beautiful Chanel, and then turned it to ice cold to finish off, and bounced out feeling fantastic.

We ruined the effect of the exercise by collapsing in the hotel lounge for a farewell glass of red wine and a dish of olives before it was time to head off for the train, and on the train discovered that it was standing room only. This meant that a further regrettable expense was necessary as we took ourselves off into First Class.

We are now utterly and completely flat broke with no secret emergency stash of money anywhere at all, but we don’t care in the least, because of having had an ace time and feeling relaxed and happy and full of good things, we will just have to go to work as much as we can for the next couple of weeks.

It was genuinely lovely to be home. We went over to the farm to collect the dogs, who were very happy to see us in a snuffly, excited sort of way, and who have wanted to play The Sock Game lots of times since we got back to reassure themselves that we still like having dogs and that life is still all right.

I feel completely holidayed out.

I do not want to go anywhere else at all. Being at home is lovely, and there are lots of projects that we would like to be getting on with, it is splendid not to be hampered by the underneath yearning for travel and adventures.

We got home and unpacked and sorted out all manner of washing. We have made an enormous pan of thick soup to keep us going over the next week at work, and now we are going to have an early night.

Travel of all sorts broadens the mind. Indeed, we are feeling broader in every way than we did when we set off.

Life is a marvellous thing.

Good night.