Away in April 2011 – Day 5 A garden, a castle and fish and chips

Sissinghurst Castle, Bodiam Castle, Hastings

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Woke to a cold and wet day. Another early morning but time for journalling again. However, bad news when we came to shower and discovered that there was no hot water!

Decided to just have a wash and let the owner, Mrs Ross, sort it out whilst we went out for the day.

Outside still drizzling with biting and cool wind. Undeterred we drove to Sissinghurst Castle Gardens . What luck – got in free after letting them know that we were Australian members of the National Trust, even though we had no proof of this with us! Had to buy £5 worth of raffle tickets to show our thanks!

Gardens coming alive with spring bulbs and trees in bud – it would be a picture when all the trees in leaf and roses in bloom. Excellent tea room, gift shop and garden shop. If we only we lived in England I would definitely have bought some plants!

Continued onto Bodiam Castle. Beautiful location and picturesque castle with intact outer shell rising out of the moat. It’s a picture perfect castle seen in textbooks and publicity ads. Inside we were able to climb up one of the towers to lovely views across the countryside.

It was already mid afternoon so decided to drive to Hastings for early dinner, rather than going on to Knole SevenOaks. Found a cafe opposite the pebble beach and had the special fish and chips with slice of bread and butter and cup of tea for £5.00 each. It was only afterwards that we realized we had had the OAP special from the window, meaning Old Age Pensioner! We must have looked the part. Temporarily warmed, we had short walk along the beach to pick up a couple of pebbles before driving back to Wye.

Arrived back to warm Halfpenny Cottage. Met by Mr Ross who said that boiler had been repaired. But after a fridge snack and pot of tea, saw that the washing up water was cold and there was no hot water and no heating.

What to do? It was already after 7.00pm and about 8.20pm before an amicable solution was found – not ideal but best in the circumstances. Decided that Mrs Ross would put us up in the main house – bed and breakfast style – and Mulberry Cottages would look at other options when their office opened at 8.30am in the morning.

So, now already feeling better after hot shower and in bed with a soothing cup of tea! It will all be better in the morning!

	Entrance to Sissinghurst [Map]		Field of daffodils [Map]
	Bodiam Castle [Map]		View from one of towers of Bodiam castle [Map]
	Pebble beach at Hastings [Map]		Pam’s fish and chips [Map]