Our 49th Anniversary at a Castle

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We took the train to Amberley and were told there would be a cab waiting for us. Well, there wasn’t. We called the castle and email but to no avail. Finally, we just called a cab and a bit later a women drove up to pick us up for the 5-minute drive to the castle. We could have walked but, it was dark with no street lights and no apparent sidewalk. It was only on the way back to the station that we saw the sidewalk behind hedges.

We got to the castle and checked in. Once we arrived everyone was attentive so we were not sure where the miscommunication lay.

Our room was not the high end but wonderful nevertheless. It had old exterior walls with the old window styles. Wind blew into areas but the heavy curtains helped keep the cold out.

The room had a gas fireplace and we had it lit immediately upon our arrival plus every morning first thing. We sat on the small couch, feet on the table reading, looking at our computer or snoozing.

The Castle is small but it seemed to have a nice garden. It was cold so we didn’t take much time in the garden, although I would like to see more, if we’d ever go back.

The following day, we walked into the town of Amberley, which is really small. We found a pottery shop where we found 2 women making pottery. Some of the pottery is a dark blue and quite beautiful, however, we are traveling light so we have no room for bulky things. I did find some handmade candles in both a dark green and pink/red and bought a box of each to burn both Christmas Eve and at Christmas dinner.

We found our way to the pub where we got a seat on a couch and ordered wine. There were 2 older men to the left of me and another couple, probably our age to the right of Dale. We sipped our wine and listened into the conversations of mostly the older men which were hysterical. Once I laughed right out loud, but fortunately, the men didn’t hear anything. They were both quite deaf. One conversation was about New Year’s Eve in Paris one year. Dinner started at 6 pm and they were still eating at 2am. One guy said in the morning they went croquet, other guy piped in but not many people were alive. This was our afternoons entertainment.

We walked back to the castle as it was getting dark and we didn’t have a flashlight for the footpath.

We did have a formal dinner; 3-course for each of us. But, like we always do, we shared everything so ordered different dishes. I’m sure it looked really elegant passing the plates back and forth! But even with small portions, we were stuffed for hours.

After breakfast the next morning we were off to London again. This time for 3 days.

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