going upmarket

morning. we leave jolly lodge.

Another good choice, says Deb. I'm pleased. i like positive feedback :-)

It's an almost two hour drive, mostly along the A31 or A35? Whatever, an easy road. Through, forest, fields, towns. A surprising amount of traffic but no delays.

Half way, we need a break. I search Maps for a cafe on our route. There's one on a "minor detour". Or we can read the sign by the road, Gingerbread cafe quarter mile. It's a permanent food truck in a lay-by. Offering local-beef burgers, wild boar patties (how wild?) and other slightly fancy food. We have coffee -- instant or fresh brewed? and a snack bar.

Easy parking, food, drink, toilet... sorry, WC, small picnic area with seats and tables. All very nice. Despite the traffic roaring past.

On to Brockenhurst, where we are far too early to check in. 

I'm worried. Our hotel is very much a pub.Nice. but... a pub. What will the room be like?

We walk to the village centre, which takes some finding.

The main road is a very busy through road. There's a train station. Plus all the usual village stuff, as far as we can tell.

We stop for lunch at The Buttery, a very nice cafe.

We're not sure how big it will be so we share one "Yorkshire". A very large, and delicious, yorkshire pudding. Filled with two sausages, cauliflower cheese, onion gravy. Amazing. followed by rhubarb and orange crumble Orange?! seems to work :-)

We check into our hotel. The Huntsman.

Our room is... not too bad. Ground floor, off a small garden courtyard. With access to the car without traipsing through the hotel. I'm reassured.

The room is comfortable. Not large but not crowded. I'm impressed, easily impressed :-) by the thick towelling bathrobes. We rest... I sleep for a few hours. Deb did all the driving but I'm tired.

We eat dinner in the hotel. I don't like it. It's up itself.

Deb has oven-baked English camembert. ie a whole cam. melted, with toast and chutney. Tastes nice but is far too rich.

I have pork and black pudding sausage roll with chutney. Nice but, it's just a sausage roll. And not very much of it.

The hotel is 13th century, modernised Thoroughly covered up. Our room has a massive feiling beam. Apart from that, the hotel seems quite new... all the history has been covered up. All very nice, but... not interesting.

And the cups in our room are small. Pod coffee but too small. We're used to more room space and big-enough cups.

Ah well. It's easy access from room to village and car. No steep hill!

We have places to visit, walks to walk. I suspect we will eat out a lot. With very little interest in more meals at this hotel. The Buttery is far more our style :-) There will be others just as good.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
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If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.