What I did over Easter- part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to my friend Freddie that on Easter Sunday it would be great to drive out to the countryside (in his nice new car) and go hiking. Shortly after we’d made the plans, I realised that I don’t have any hiking gear. I couldn’t call and cancel on Freddie, because well... it was MY idea in the first place; he’d been so enthusiastic about it and had already started planning the trip. He also invited his mom, Inga, who is visiting from Sweden to join us – and she was excited. Then I just had to go mention it to my friend Beth who asked if she could tag along…

Well… just couldn’t disappoint all those people!

So when on the News the weather girl announced with a smile that it would be a cold wet windy Easter weekend, I could have kissed my TV screen in delight. Freddie sent a text amending the plans to pub lunch, safari drive in Longleat and maybe Bath- no hiking! I was ecstatic and I’m pretty sure at some point shouted Halleluiah!

Sunday dawned, and off we drove towards Somerset. We stopped off and had a look around Old Sarum, where you can find the ruins of a palace built by William the Conqueror in 1069. This is an aerial view of Old Sarum

We’d planned to stop at Stonehenge, but because of traffic we were running late for our booked pub lunch. Freddie even had to phone them using his car phone to push reservation back by an hour. He dialled the number on the dashboard and then the speakers of the car started ringing - like a wireless phone- I was suitably impressed!

Now I like hanging out with Freddie but here’s the thing. He earns bucket loads of money – compared to me at least, and he assumes that every one has the same amount of disposable income. He’d booked lunch in a nice but expensive pub, the Bath Arms in Longleat at £25 per head! That’s 2 weeks of my grocery allowance!!! I’d withdrawn £20 that morning with the intention of using £10, so suddenly lunch didn’t seem like a good prospect any more. The cheaper option was £19.50 and Beth who is just as poor as me, was studiously avoiding my gaze. Freddie is my friend, but not THAT good a friend, so couldn’t borrow money off him. To cut a long story short, I took the cheaper option. Groceries? What groceries?! The portion sizes were large, and I'm sure must have tasted good, but lunch left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth, washed down by tap water (the only free thing on the menu)

We took stroll around the Longleat grounds. This place was owned by an eccentric guy called Lord Bath, who in the 1970’s brought over exotic animals which included 50 lions (poor things). It also has giraffe’s, monkeys, flamingos etc. This was one of the first places outside Africa where you can go on a safari drive at a price of £30.80 per adult. I deflected Freddie’s enthusiastic cries of ‘Let’s go on safari!’, and this time I was successful. We ended up doing the free stuff – like touring the gardens around the house, and looking at Lord Bath’s collection of Nazi memorabilia… yeah I know… weird. The guy was a bloody Nazi sympathiser!

We drove back to London, exhausted but happy! (okay… me silently berating myself because of my pride. I should have spoken up about how expensive it was). Our only regret is that we didn’t have time to go to Bath. Freddie suggested a weekend trip later on this year, including an overnight stay. A good idea, but Beth and I privately agreed that while Freddie and his mom, stay in some swanky boutique hotel, we’ll look for a good cheap youth hostel and bring packed lunch along too.