Castling

 

This weekend's adventure took us to Gloucestershire to spend the night living it up like a king and queen at Thornbury Castle. 

We set off on a rainy Sunday morning, stopping mid-way at Frampton on Severn for a coffee at Ley Bistro. The keen-eyed among you will recall I visited Frampton during a previous adventure with Max and Emma. Much like on my last visit to the village, nothing at all happened on this visit either. 

We left Frampton and headed for Thornbury, making a short stop off at Wotton under Edge to pay a visit to England's most haunted house - The Ancient Ram Inn. Although we were unable to go inside, the essence of ghost radiates off the place and leaves you under no illusion that inside is riddled with the spirits of the dead. Partly scared that one of these entities would attach itself to us and follow us home, but mainly because it was chucking it down, we decided not to linger. After snapping off a couple of photos, we beat a hasty retreat to the comfort of the motor and got the hell out of there. 

If you look really carefully at the photo below, you can just about make out the outline of a house behind me. Spooky. 

From Wotton, it was only a short drive to Thornbury and our residence for the night. For a castle, it was actually slightly smaller that I expected, but no less impressive for being so. We were shown up to our suite (The Anne Boleyn); a very grand room with ceilings at least 80ft high and a 15ft wide bed. Despite it being such an elegant room, it only took us around 5 minutes to crap it up (Mike more so than me - he's such a filth bag). 

Mike managed to wangle us a free bottle of prosecco, which we wasted no time in downing in the room, before stumbling off to explore the grounds. There are some decent ruins within the grounds, and despite wearing completely inappropriate footwear (I did advise Mike not to wear his heels), we endeavoured to explore. Unfortunately for me, in my slightly drunken state I cracked my head on a low doorway which left me in some considerable pain (although I fought back the tears I was silently crying inside so Mike would think I was tough). Despite Mike warning me of the danger I was walking into, I still blamed my mishap on him. 

Deciding that it was probably wise to leave the exploring there for the day, we returned to our room to wait for dinner. 

After making ourselves look respectable, we headed off downstairs in search of a pre-dinner drink. And this is where the evening started to go downhill. Upon being seated in the Library, we were issued with the drinks menu. After being a little bit sick in my mouth at the price of the wine, my first instinct was to sulk and refuse to order any. However, after some cajoling from Mike I succumbed and ordered a cheeky bottle of pink, a bargain at a mere £30 (thieving bastards). 

After the wine debarcle, we headed to the restaurant for dinner. An intimate but cosy room, the restaurant was empty except for us. One thing to note, I was well on my way to being drunk by this point. When the waiting fellow gave us the menu, the choice was a tasting menu or 3-course menu, both costing an eye-watering £62 per person (how effing much?!). Whilst Mike was happy to choose either of these options, being a Plain Jane when it comes to food, I didn't much fancy anything this menu had to offer me (let alone the pigging price), so I asked if I may indulge in the bar menu instead. Despite the fact Mike was going to have the rip-off menu, my request was refused, and we were ousted from the restaurant and back into the Library. I was outraged at being booted out of the dining room and proceeded to whinge on about it for the rest of the evening, in the way only a disgruntled drunkard can. I even bored the arse off the poor waiter with my tale of mistreatment, in a kind of 'don't they know who I am?' kind of way - clearly they didn't know I had my own blog with 3 followers. 

Three bottles of wine, a smoked salmon sandwich and bowl of chips later, and we were both very merry and slightly boisterous. Luckily for us, all the other guests were in the restaurant, so there was nobody around to embarrass ourselves in front of. During the course of the evening we played chess twice, and I lost twice - however in my defence, I was slightly drunk and Mike cheated by making up some rule which he called Castling (cheating git). I texted Max to check whether this move was genuine, and to my absolute disgust it turned out he hadn't make it up at all - I still think it's a stupid move. 

In the morning, both nursing foggy heads, we trotted down to the restaurant for breakfast (I was allowed in this time). Mike had the Full English and I had Eggs Royale (more salmon, I was in danger of looking like a salmon). Breakfast was lovely, and afterwards we took another stroll around the grounds, followed by a walk into the town. 

If you fancy treating yourself to a night in a castle and pretending you're Harry & Megan for the night, then Thornbury Castle should do the trick. But bring lots of money with you and don't expect to get any chips in the restaurant. 

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