Say Again, Granny Alert?

Consider a restoration project for those with a couple of million to spare and a deep fear of crowded spaces. The location of this property, newly arrived on the market, will be ideal for watching the new Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers coming in and out of the harbour. No more will drunken singers argue outside your bedroom window at 4 in the morning. No more will earnest yet deluded true believers attempt to persuade you that the gods are real.

On the other hand, popping out for a pint of milk might be an issue, and it comes with zero parking spaces. Unless you have a boat.

Anyway.

Well, it started normally. This is because I was in school. I did very well on my maths test which means I have graduated past The Thing, or Robin the Boy Blunder, or the Reticulated Wasp or whatever superhero represents the 3 and 4 times table.

I will therefore move on to the Green Lantern or Wonder Woman or whoever is in charge of the 5 and 6 times tables. But then Jof arrived to take me to an opticians’ appointment which was outside the pub where Bud picked us up in the big car and we drove west at varying speeds depending.

I played Minecraft all the way to Salisbury which is where we always hit the traffic and after only 2 hours we reached Center Parcs (Longleat) where Jof had kindly booked us in for her 50^th birthday treat. We were deep in the countryside and somebody had clearly imported extra trees.

The car park was complicated and we got a bit lost but we followed the signs and only 9 miles later we found Chalet #917 which was in the Giant Redwoods section and everywhere is full of hills.

And trees. And roads you can’t cycle down, and paths you can’t drive down, and signs for Ash 380-1290 and Maple 312-940 and we were just happy we’d found a cabin with the right number.

It was decent in size if there were 6 of you and I found the sauna and BBQ and our own little patch of grass outside and 3 big ensuite bedrooms so I instantly marked my territory by crapping in one of them as is my way. Each double-sized bedroom has its own dressing table and mirror and shower room and I had mine so Jof took the one with the bath and Bud had the other.

So after unloading the 17 suitcases that Jof had thoughtfully packed, they went off to park the car in the long-term fungus-ridden woodland car repository and came back with 2 bikes with automatic lights. I had heard about this place from the PuddleMummies, apparently it is a place where you have a spa, drink vodka and go down waterslides and flumes. Well, I fancied the flumes so we trudged up 7 hills to reach the pool that we could see from our window and it was epic.

An unseen Tarzan did his ahh-aah ah song intermittently in a vast indoor tropical paradise with palm trees and shops and hibiscus bushes and coffee shops and Indian Almond trees and restaurants and carp ponds and more shops and I goggled at all of it and we hit the waterworld place.

The changing rooms have an ingenious double-door lock it only took me 8 minutes to master and we emerged into the wave pool and climbed the stone walkways under the lianas and palms and tried out the short green slide and the butt-buster and the Multi-Niagara of Destiny that goes outside and the long green slide and the indoor whirl-pool tunnel.

We tend to move around a lot with quacking and laughter and Bud can’t see because of no glasses in the pool and I don’t listen so we go around together and always lose Jof. But then she found us again and we told her the butt-buster was ok and she believed us and made a really big splash and we laughed at her. Then Bud said get in that plunge pool, you’ll love it and of course it was the one at 4 degrees centigrade and I hadn’t read the sign and this is why I hate him so I made him get in too and he said a loud bad word and all the nearby people laughed and most of them were like the Icelandic football team with the big beards.

I insisted on going down the Multi-Niagara many times with Jof backwards, upside down etc and we bumped into the walls and other Niagara users a lot and shouted “Tell my story” and “Avenge my death” and “I’m too young to die” when going over the falls or getting caught in the whirlpools and I pretended to be the liquid metal Terminator dying in the vat of molten steel and we’ll probably be bruised tomorrow.

We got out at 1 hour 20 past beer and we were all hungry so we walked the miles back to Hovel #917 and had Pizza and dried off the towels in the sauna right under the sign saying don’t leave clothes and towels in the sauna. The bath didn’t work for me but the shower was good and we seemed to have a burping and farting contest which is nice considering one of our number can apply for a SAGA card tomorrow and this is her Adventure before Dementia.

There was cake. And a lot of disbelief that one of us can navigate the sylvan byways and arboreal highways of this forested fen without having seen it before.