DAY 1: West Midlands to Marlborough to Salisbury to Sandbanks
This was a British tour - a weekend away. I've been going away for May Day weekend with Ancient Assistant Noreen for as long as I can remember - I think it started back in the late 1990s. This time, I was taking my pals Frank and Theo along with me, as well as the ancient assistant and assistants Di and Paul (well a bear does need staff to travel properly, don't you think?)
We had our regular coach company - Group Travel of Stourbridge - taking us. As Noreen had organised it, we had the bus to ourselves (well, our group, not just the boys and me!) and we set off at 9.15am, with 28 humans and 3 bears. The sky was a bit grey and overcast - not a promising start! As we rode along the weather kept switching from sun to rain and back.
We arrived at Marlborough
at about 11.15am for a 90 minute stop. There wasn't really a huge amount to do there - just some shops and a market, but that suits us. The town lies alongside the River Kennet.
We moseyed up and down checking out the charity shops and the cake shops. I spotted a stall selling
sausage sandwiches. Unfortunately, no one (else) was hungry so they decided not to spend the money! Cheapskates!
As we wandered I bumped into R2-D2, of all robots - well it
was Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you).
There was a little church at the end of the High Street, so we took some photos of that before heading back to the coach.
Back on the coach we had a couple of games of bingo before arriving at Salisbury.
We had another 90 minutes to amble about. There's a nice riverside walk from the coach park into town. We took a shot of St Thomas's Church and went into a few more charity shops - from one I got asst Dave a great silk tie with teddy bears on it! We saw some old parts of Salisbury, amidst the shops as we headed over to the Cathedral.
We headed over to Salisbury Cathedral and took a look around.
We still had half an hour so decided to take a look inside. It was free to go inside! Blimey at York Minster you had to pay to go in this bit, that bit, upstairs, downstairs, it was ridiculous. Nope, at Salisbury, in you walk! We wandered around the cloisters and inside the cathedral.
They have a model of how the castle and church would have looked in the Twelfth Century. There was a large number of organ pipes visible in the choir's section. Looked pretty impressive. They were setting up for a concert that evening but they were just breaking for lunch when we arrived, so we didn't get to hear them.
We just had time to run through the gift shop - it was pretty extensive, with the usual tourist tat and some nicer quality stuff. They also had a very interesting collection of plastic ducks! We passed The Rifles Military Museum. As we headed back to the coach park we found some even nicer ducks!
Our next stop was our final destination for the day - the Sandbanks Hotel, in Sandbanks,
Dorset. It's a big hotel, near to the sea front. Once we got to our
room we saw just how close! Fortunately for the assistants, our room
was a suite (really a family room) and us bears had our own separate room, with
three beds and a big telly, so we were sorted. At least the assistants wouldn't have to
sleep in the bath this time! They had a bed - and a room - of their own!
As we explored the room, we found we had a sea view balcony and ours was
separate from that of the assistants so we wouldn't have to mix with them! Very good! There was also a
fridge, lots of tea, coffee and four packets of biscuits!
We had a couple of hours until dinner so we hit the beach. We had a
paddle and took some photos at the Lifeguard Station.
Theo tried to bury Frank (he didn't mind) and we played with a ball, before heading back to the hotel for dinner. We passed the bar with a very distracting pizza (I think the boys ordered room service once I'd gone to dinner).
As part of the trip, we had dinner organised in The Sea View Restaurant. A set meal, but there were still several choices. I chose the goat's cheese tartlet as a starter. The main was beef, duck or - for the vegetarians (like my asst) - a plate of gnocchi. Now I'm no culinary expert, but a plate of gnocchi in sauce, covered in grass is hardly a main course!
The music was loud when we went back to our room. On the good side it
was decent 1970s/80s music, but it went on beyond 1am. One of my fellow
passengers complained after 1am, but was told she would have "had a
letter about it." She wouldn't have minded quite so much if her room
wasn't next door to the music! Soon after, however, the music stopped,
I didn't care, I was already asleep!
