We had had enough and we left.
I packed up the van with all our stuff and retrieved all my cooking gear from the kitchen (we hadn’t trusted the supplied utensils). Left it in better condition that we found it, and rolled out in search of some holiday for our holiday.
Aimi had found The Bear Hotel in a little village called Crickhowell nearby. Above is a comparison of what we were leaving behind for what we got in the hotel. Yes, that single bed is on its side, my solution to the sleeping inadequacies of the house…
The double bed that had been provided was rubbish. It had clearly broken at one point and been reinforced with extra supports along the centre. But this wasn’t enough to stop it from sagging in the middle forcing us to sleep pressed up against each other – No not like that – trust me, nothing like that was possible in that house, let alone that bed. I guarantee if the bed hadn’t collapsed in the night, it would have been the janky joists beneath. So I avoided the problem before it happened and went to sleep on a single bed in another room… away from my partner… on holiday…
Well the single bed had an end to it, so while it was strong enough for 1 person (even someone as mighty as me) I was stunted from spreading out and feeling relaxed. I suffered one night like that before working out a mild improvement. I decided to put the mattress on the floor and then I would have all the length I needed. However, the room was so small that the only place a mattress would fit was in the space taken by the crappy bed. With a bit of inventive wiggling, I managed to turn one bed on its side, which provided just enough space to lay the mattress down on the floor…
When we arrived at the hotel, we were treated to the “Best Room”. This is the name of the room direct from their brochure. We weren’t in the “Cosy Room” or the “Good Room” or even the “Better Room”. We were in the “Best Room”!!! (There was one more level called the “Very Best Room” if you want to be that fancy)
The “Best Room” had wondrous features, like a kettle that was clean of grubby finger marks, linen that was ironed and, low and behold, a floor that was level and flat! It really was luxury even by luxury standards, the bed was huge, it had classy drapes around it and so many pillows it took 20 mins to excavate the bed enough to get into it. There was also a Spa Bathtub which would ease our aching bodies from our mountain bike ride tomorrow.
Once checked in, we went for a little walk around Crickhowell and discovered it’s the picture-postcard Welsh valley town. With a triangle at its centre hosting a stone monument, shops surrounding it on all sides, a village hall with market space beneath and a castle ruin in the background looming over the brightly coloured houses. We did some normal holiday things; stopped in pub for a relaxing pint, browsed shops, Aimi bought a framed photo of some Bison, you know, the normal stuff…
But the best bit of holiday luxury was a proper restaurant meal. It’s been about 18 months since Aimi and I had a date night out to a proper restaurant so we enjoyed the excuse to dress up a little and indulge in some truly incredible food. We had mentioned we were staying at The Bear Hotel to someone earlier this week and they had gushed excitedly about the food, saying how good it was. Therefore we were anticipating good things, but OMG it was the most amazing food. Most places have some specialities that the are good at, and then the normal stuff. But here, literally everything we ordered was super tasty, satisfying and decently portioned. Particularly good was the salt and pepper fried squid which usually I’d steer clear from. Only my dessert pineapple carpaccio seemed expensive for what it was, but nonetheless tasty.