Morning all. I didn’t do my usual departure room blogs on my recent UK trip because for once I was not flying solo. We were travelling together for a family wedding, and it was quite novel to be honest. Given that we have 4 animals, us travelling together means someone having to pet sit, so hubs goes away for work, I go to visit Mum and never the twain shall meet.

We had about an hours outbound flight delay, the car hire was closed when we got to Leeds which we knew it would be, so we jumped straight in a taxi and headed for our hotel. A taxi from Leeds to our hotel using the on-site taxi franchise £44! The same taxi trip via Uber the next morning £12. Dick Turpin is alive and well it seems. Our hire car was a mighty Fiat 500 which amusingly made my husband look like a giant for a week.

Our hotel, which I won’t name here, but if you know you know, was interesting…. It’s a hotel I knew well. In a lovely rural village, nestled between Leeds and Bradford, so perfect access to my Sisters, my mum’s care home, a gig we had in Halifax, and a trip to the theatre in Bradford. Location-wise I knew it would be perfect, and we got a great rate for the 5 nights we were staying. Part of me thought this was too good to be true. When I called them from Limoges airport to let them know that we were likely to be arriving around midnight and was that OK, the reply was “you’re staying for 5 nights, you can come when you like!”. Alarm bells were sounded…..

It’s a country hotel that was formerly part of a very well known and respected chain, it’s bread and butter was weddings, large marquee out the back, I’d done wedding fayres there when I was doing wedding cakes as a little side hustle, corporate xmas parties in lovely oak panelled function rooms. You get the idea. From the outside little had changed, stone fronted, covered in creeper, still very pretty, but the sign is now edged in neon green led rope lighting.

Reception was broadly fine, but staff constantly absent from the desk, either having a cigarette outside, in full view of arriving guests, or sauntering in with a coffee. Service was extremely friendly but not what I’d call exactly professional. The chandelier just a touch brash, the flowers silk and a bit shabby. It was fine. Just slightly off.

It was clearly in the process of renovation, some of the labyrinthine corridors were bare plaster with ongoing comings and goings of decorators. We were given a room upgrade on arrival which is always a joy, and the room I can’t fault, it was very clean, very newly decorated, huge very comfortable bed, and a great size. The bathroom was quite luxurious actually, but the choice of marble (or marble like overlay), just a touch loud. That marble that’s quite contrasting and tiger stripy. You know what I mean. The artwork on the walls were like if you’d put into AI, “artwork for a Yorkshire hotel”. Pictures of sheep, hillsides, aerial photography of farms. Again, it was fine, but it just wasn’t quite right. The rolling hills might have a bunch of gold balloons rising from behind them for example. We tried breakfast on our first morning because it was convenient before going to pick up our car. Table service, so no hot buffet. The menu was minimal, no eggs Benedict for example (not trying to be a snob here friends, I’m in a hotel, let someone else deal with breakfast faffing), you could choose from turkey bacon, beef sausages (fair enough I guess) and the usual other stuff. Hubs ordered a composite full English, that arrived with a separate cereal bowl full of beans. I dutifully asked him if he had enough beans. The smile I received back was rather wan…. I opted for 2, 5 minute boiled eggs, they were fine. No self service coffee machine, hubs watched 2 sachets of Nescafe go into the stainless steel coffee pot, before the waitress brought it over. This was not a £15 a head breakfast.

The hotel still has the lovely bones that I remember, but then I put my finger on why it was just a touch off. The decor in the restaurant area, instead of being neutrals and wood and simple, country hotel-ish, it was purple leatherette high backed very modern banquette seating, fake trees with fairy lights round them, in fact fairy lights wrapped around anything that had stayed still long enough. It was as if the interior designer had only ever worked on modern Indian restaurants. Indeed, there is now an Indian restaurant on the side of the hotel, the fusion of cultures the new owners have gone for just hasn’t quite paid off, the transition between the 2 just slightly jarring. The main issue was that we had a conjoined room, with a door that could have been opened to the room next door if needed for say, a family group. This door had absolutely no soundproofing and the couple in the next room were, how shall I phrase this…. inconsiderate gob-shites. 1.00am, bellowing at each other, watching a film on high volume. Yes, we could’ve complained, but realistically what is a decent outcome at 1.00am. Ear plugs went in, and quiet seething in the dark – as it the British way.

Our first night, we had dinner at one of our favourite local pubs with the fam. Steak and Kidney suet pudding and chips – yes please! I cannot remember the last time I had any sort of steamed pud, savoury or otherwise and I was a very happy sausage.

On our second day we went into Leeds in the afternoon for various food items, and a few drinks. We had a Dagel, a donut sprinkled with bagel seasoning and filled with whipped cream cheese. Oh my good god! go and check out Doh’hut in Leeds please.

Then we managed to be invited into White Cloth Hall’s soft opening, and we had tacos, charred Padron peppers, and excellent guac and much fun. It opened properly on Friday of last week and is just brilliant.

We visited Mum in the mornings every day in the week, she’s fine really. Has lost the best part of 10 stone now but is eating maybe a little more than when I last saw her a few months ago. Some days very chatty, others quite tired, others where she was quite content to just read the paper or watch A Place in the Sun without much to discuss. I’m happy just being there so I think that works for both of us.

I think we’ll make this a two-parter as I’m rambling on a bit, so part 2 to follow.

TTFN xx