You know you’re in a posh hotel when the car park is a thing of beauty. Though I must admit I quite like all car parks. Because they speak of civilisation, of occupation, of land being used wisely and of sufficient numbers of people to require them. Otherwise the world’s a bit… empty. But I’m a towny, so that’s me.

And we arrived in the wilds of Watford just in time for the advised ‘check in’ time of 3pm. Ahhh, sorry, we were told, the room’s not quite ready yet. Have some drinks on us!!! Oh, ok then. So we drank. And we strolled. And went back an hour later and… sorry, its not quite there, any minute. Would you like a drink? I’ve had a fucking drink! I said quietly and politely. Would you like some food? No I sodding wouldn’t!! Hmmmm… tell you what though, a nice bottle of wine at dinner would be nice. OK!!! said the nice but stressed Spanish dude who had adopted us as his problem. Red or white?

Which is lovely and nice and the weekend was getting freer by the second. And we went to our room about an hour and a half after we thought we’d be there, but the bags hadn’t come. WE’D HAVE CARRIED THE FUCKING BAGS OURSELVES!! They were only small. They were mainly empty anyway so we have lots of room for Mel to stock up on: slippers, bottles of water (because the bottles were nice, water’s water), little toothbrush/toothpaste kits, body lotions, soaps, shampoos, towels, flannels… Which are all very useful when we travel and need ‘little things’. But they put the bags somewhere when we arrived and now they were ‘in the system’ or ‘with the concierge’ or ‘gone to a parallel universe’ or whatever hotels do with them.

Anyway, in our bags were our swimming things and that was where we wanted to go. Swimmin’. So we waited more. And Pedro/Juan/Miguel sent us some water up and some macarons to keep us quiet whilst we waited some more, because we obviously hadn’t waited long enough by that time.

And you may think: what a fucking ingrate! Or, what an impatient tosser of a princess! Or some such to describe someone in the absolute lap of luxury who hasn’t stopped complaining for 90 minutes and had run out of free things to acquire unless they were going to give me some cash. And yeah, there was an Indian wedding (always BIG) party there (you could tell by the number of DA14SHA and PAT3L and PRT11Y type number plates in the lovely and luxurious car park.)

But its a 5 star hotel. And hotels have one advantage over other places. They know exactly who is coming and when. They know precisely how many people are checking out that morning and how many are arriving that afternoon. And if they’re that busy; bring more cleaners in, get more desk clerks, whatever. It’s no excuse to say ‘we’re busy’ because you’ve known for 3 months exactly when and how busy you’re going to be.

Dinner, the only thing we did pay for, was ‘ok’. Nice but not spectacular. Though by then we’d had a few whiskies and our free bottle of wine so perhaps weren’t in a position to judge. Breakfast, just a few hours later, was fucking spectacular. Pool is outstanding. Or ‘instanding’ as we didn’t use the outdoor one due to rainage.

And the grounds are just amazing. Not just the walled gardens and immediate environs, but we went on the 4–mile walk around the perimeter, along the canal, across the golf course, through the woods, this morning and it was just wonderful. Though we got lost (we ALWAYS get lost) so ended up doing 7 miles instead because my navigational skills are such that its like giving a blind man a compass, spinning him round three times and telling him to find his way through the forest.

Now we’re home. Holiday over. Really enjoyable. Most of it.

Now its Spurs/Arsenal to worry about. Holy shit! The most stressful thing ever.

Happy ungrateful and ridiculously demanding Sunday

A xxxx