Having cancelled
two holidays (Spain/Gibraltar and Botswana/South Africa) due to COVID19
and with no end in sight to travel restrictions, we are both heartily fed up
with the same 4 walls. Trips to the supermarket and golf just aren't
enough anymore and whilst holidays may seem unimportant and trivial to some,
having got through 18 months of treatment 2020 was to be our year of making up
for lost time. Luckily we managed to get to (not so) Awesome Oz in
January before the virus hit Europe and now, reading back on that blog, our
comments about using the word Wuhan to get some space seem a
bit inappropriate given the scale of the pandemic.
So when the opportunity of a horse shoot đ˛ in North Wales came up I jumped at it, even though looking at the map the Lynn Peninsular seems to be at just about the furthest possible point from home. Luckily Ian readily agreed to come with me (shows just how desperate he is to get away too).
Knowing the shoot was in the offing a month or so ago, I'd researched hotels and found Travelodge/Premier Inn about 30 mins drive away. Although these are soul-less places they do have a good standard of cleanliness, nice linen and comfy mattresses. Unfortunately by the time the shoot was confirmed, they were both sold out so we took what we could - The Crown Inn in Pwllheli - which if you read its website is wonderful.
Just before we left home, a young lady from the sister hotel, The Victoria, phoned to give us our room number and to say that if we had any problems when we arrived to telephone her. Perhaps that should have set the alarm bells ringing!
We left home about 1pm and had a good run through the Dartford Tunnel, then M25, M1, M6, M54 and somewhere around Telford we decided to stop at the services for a cuppa. It was only a small services with various separate buildings (as opposed to concessions within one large one) so we tried Starbucks first but no tea bags although the Barista seemed to think coffee was a reasonable substitute - it wasn't. Then Sainsbury's but no hot drinks and ridiculous prices for chocolate. Finally, in desperation - Burger King - but they didn't have any milk. So we left empty handed (empty bladdered) and I can't help but think if they'd got together and shared what resources they did have, everyone could have benefitted.
On leaving the M54 we joined the A5 and the road was much slower but Ian kept me entertained with his map reading and pronunciation of Welsh place names.
We had a brief stop at the Llyn Celyn reservoir to stretch our legs; this lake was created in the early 1960s with the building of a dam across the River Tryweryn.
About 40 or so miles before Pwllheli it started to rain and rain and rain. No wonder the grass is acid green (hence the colour of this blog layout). As usual the Qashqai's satnav got us to the general area before unceremoniously dumping us in a cul-de-sac but even using my phone for directions we still drove round the town several times before we found the hotel. I know Welsh hotels have been open less time that English ones but I wasn't prepared for the lack of facilities.
The 'Jewel in the Crown' Bangladeshi restaurant, of which the hotel's website boasts, had reopened just 5 days ago and luckily for us one of the staff helpfully explained where we could find the room key and where the car park was. As it was still chucking it down, we were recommended to offload our luggage from the front before finding the rear car park via Asda. The bar area of the hotel was shut and all furniture piled up; the room keys left on one table with a list of who was staying where and a bottle of hand sanitiser.
Eventually we made it up the 3 flights of stairs to our room. It was OK; a good size, 3 beds so snoring can be avoided but you'd have to be a contortionist to watch TV from any of the beds. More importantly, no toiletries and no bath mat and only 4 small milk pots. So I was straight on the phone to the girl who'd rung us earlier = no reply, so I found a landline number and got through to someone (sounded like the same person to me) who promised to get the missing items to us. In the meantime we wandered over to Asda (literally right behind the hotel) and bought some shower gel which would also suffice as soap and some milk.
Tired after the long drive and as it was still chucking it down with rain we decided to eat in the restaurant downstairs. We knew they'd only just reopened but it was all a bit shambolic; no other diners, no bottles of white wine chilled (fridge too full?) so all they could offer was a glass each, no fruit in the peshwari naan and the chicken biryani was average to say the least.
On the way back to our room we read the various notes left around in the corridors and eventually discovered the wifi code - it felt rather like completing a treasure hunt.
Despite the weather being several degrees cooler in Wales it was still a very warm night and we needed the windows open. Unfortunately there was a lot of noise from both outside and other rooms so we didn't get a great deal of sleep.