It’s my birthday!

We had a plan for today. Most of it failed.

We started by taking a walk to a nearby town called Winsford. We had a list of elaborate instructions written on paper and a map with lots of useless squiggly lines.

It started off ok, alongside the river, then through a few houses, but then we ended up on farmland. Now, farmland is my least of all favourite places to walk. But, we persisted, in the heat, no shade, opening and closing gates.

But when I got bitten by a horse fly, I decided that was enough. I’ve been bitten by these guys before and they have caused great big welts and were the most painful bite I have ever had. Plus the walk was boring as hell. So after only 30 minutes, we backtracked. It turned out to be a great decision.

I hadn’t wanted to drive anywhere on my birthday, but we decided to head to a little town called Withypool for a cream tea. (Not Devonshire as we are in Sommerset). As it turned out, we’d be driving through the town we’d planned on walking to, so we could see what it was like. As we drove towards the town we saw a couple from camp, ploughing along the road towards it. Suckers.

The town itself was nothing special. Some thatched cottages, a pub and that was about it. So we drove on through, eager to find our cream tea.

We arrived at Withypool and this was a charming little town with a river running through it, and the tea rooms.

We both ordered a cream tea each, whereas one to share would have been more sensible. A giant scone came out with a large tub of clotted cream which looked more like clotted arteries. And two types of jam, strawberry and a blue one. Oh, and a big pot of tea. I was a bit disappointed they had tea bags in it and not tea leaves, but it was still delicious.

And the cream tea was amazing! In England there is this thing. Do you put the jam on first or the cream. We both know that of course it’s the jam. But I have come up with a new one. I call it the slurry. You put the jam on, then the cream, and mix it into a slurry. That is now the best way to do it.

We both really enjoyed our cream tea. Mike, who is probably more of an expert than me, thought the scone was a bit dry, but I actually liked it like that. It was melt in your mouth delicious!

After that we drove along the moors to Tarr steps. These are 800 year old stone steps going across the river. It was mind blowing thinking that these steps have actually lasted 800 years without any mortar or cement. Just sitting there, strategically placed with occasional maintenance.

We walked across and they were so solid, not a rock wobble in sight.

On the way back to camp, we saw the couple who had decided to walk all the way, sitting on the side of the road looking very hot and bothered.

We finished the day with dinner at the local pub near the camp. The Badgers Holt is a really quaint little pub. It felt more like sitting in someone’s living room. There is just the one chef and the one guy serving drinks. It’s interesting as they only take bookings of one seating per half hour so the chef can keep up with meals. So we had the 6pm booking.

We had a Guinness while we waited and a man came in being pulled along by his dog. ‘This dog can smell a pub a mile off,’ he said. ‘I don’t even like pubs but the dog pulls me here.’

I thought it was funny.

We both ordered the aged fillet steak and it was absolutely delicious. Served with chips, onion rings, mushrooms, salad and peas, it was the best steak I have had in a long time (probably since Eve).

After dinner, Mike asked me what the photo of the bird on the wall was. It was a kiwi! A kiwi cricket team had visited in 1986 and gifted a photo of a kiwi. Well, thought it was cool.