G & J away from home

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Hopefully the last of the very, very busy days is behind us as we settle in for four days at our cottage in La Rochelle Road in Guernsey.  Being here is a tick in a number of boxes of our book pilgrimage - the 'La Rochelles' being a seven-book series set in Guernsey by author Elinor Brent Dyer:

• Gerry Goes to School (1922)
• A Head Girl's Difficulties (1923)
• The Maids of La Rochelle (1924)
• Seven Scamps (1927)
• Heather Leaves School (1929)
• Janie of La Rochelle (1932)
• Janie Steps in (1953)

But our day started near Bath with an early start so that we could squeeze in a few of the sights of that city and a visit to the Roman Baths for Beth and Marianne.  Not having to do a three-point-turn to get back across the toll bridge made the departure less of an adventure than usual and it was a quick drive into the town area where the kindly GPS directed us to the same car park we had used last year - very nicely positioned close to everything.

The aim was to have Beth and Marianne outside the baths when the doors opened at 9am as we really needed to head off for Southampton airport by 11am and we not only managed that but had enough time to point out the guild hall as we trotted by and divert them down to Pulteney Bridge and the weir before getting in the queue.

The Guild Hall

Must be a book fair: Beth and Marianne queue

In the Roman Baths (Photo: Marianne)

While Beth and Marianne were away touring the baths I went shopping in the nearby Bath Aqua Glass shop:

Just the place for a shopping fix

It was a very difficult decisions about what to buy (whether to buy not really ever up for debate) but in the end I went for a bauble which can be a Christmas decoration.  (As well as liking Christmas decorating for its own sake I like it because I can have lots of mementoes around for a finite time and then pack them all away for the rest of the year.)

My Bath glass purchase

While talking to the very friendly and helpful sales assistant I aired my concern about transportability and she proceeded to bang the bauble she was holding against the wooden counter half a dozen times, adding that a few days before she had dropped one of them while hanging a selection on the balustrade into the shop and it had bounced on the stone stairs before rolling across the paving and coming to rest against the footings of Bath Abbey.  Needless to say I was completely reassured and, as I had the perfect space to transport it home (in one of those troublesome winter shoes), I only had to choose the colour I wanted ...  That took some time!

And then after a walk through the Crescent and Circus (under my 'guidance' Beth and I took a rather circuitous route but managed to add the Bath Recycling Centre to the places we've seen that it's possible most tourists miss), Gary and Marianne doubled back to pick up Cornish pasties for lunch before we headed off for Southampton Airport and our flight to Guernsey.


It was all pretty smooth sailing finding the airport (another credit for Mr GPS), where we had little difficulty finding the drop of spot and Gary was able to return the rental car with the minimum of bother as their paperwork is all electronic.  The only slight hitch with checking in was that the bag check-in machine did not care for my bag but a change to another identical machine solved that.  Similarly there was no problem finding the cafe and grabbing drinks to fill in time since we had checked in about an hour ahead of our planned time.

My wanderings around the airport did eventually uncover one problem; the departures board beside the departure barrier had different messages on it than the one in the cafe.  The one in the cafe said 'Check In' and the other said 'Go to Departures'.  I rustled up the crew with this information and we proceeded through security.

Only three of us proceeded through security, actually.  Gary was held up and while I was doing a bit of post-security repacking as I waited for him the other two went off for a comfort stop before boarding.  Just as I finished my repacking and looked back at Gary's still-in-progress security check (they made him take off his jandals!) I noticed that the departure board was in the process of changing the info for our flight from 'boarding' to 'final call'.

The red flashing letters of 'final call' tend to make any traveller a bit stressed, but with my husband looking like he was settling in for a long stay at security and two travelling companions off on a mission of their own I was for a moment unable to decide where could do the most good, if I could do any at all.  Eventually I settled for packing Gary's post-security baggage and readying his jandals to be stepped into the moment he was sent on his way - which he eventually was.  As we rushed through duty-free I wondered how much time I had to find the others, but I needn't have bothered about it because we were being personally invited to board the plane.

Sadly this is not unusual for Gary and I but was a first for Beth and Marianne, made more exciting as they had just found the 'ladies' when they heard the announcement.  (We later assured them that the announcements usually escalate a couple more times before the flight is actually missed.  Panic shouldn't set in until mention is made of off-loading the bags.)

Despite the slightly stressful start to the flight it was a pleasant 35 minutes out to Guernsey with Gary's camera getting passed from side to side of the aircraft to record the approach.

Approach into Guernsey

After a bus trip half-way around the island we found the cottage, settled in, and eventually walked in the fog down to the nearest marina to have tea at the restaurant there.  We were rather taken with the narrow entrance to the harbour - in the fog with the steep cliffs all around it looked like it truly belonged in some Enid Blyton tale - a secret submarine base for The Adventurous Four to discover, perhaps?

Marina entrance

(The entrance to the Beaucette Marina is not quite as dramatic as it looked from the angle we viewed it but let's not allow reality to interfere with our book-themed imaginings!)

Four nights in the same bed now.  Funny how wonderful that sounds.


Reading: Icefire by Chris d'Lacey (Jane)

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