The alarm went off at 8am this morning and was quickly silenced. Just before 10am I woke up again to the sudden and sad realization that we had 10 minutes to get to breakfast. It’s amazing what the proper motivation will do to bring three people from a dead sleep to fully awake. A run through the hotel in a daze found us at breakfast being seated and also told that we actually had until 11am and to enjoy ourselves. Once again Hilton offered us a full English breakfast complimentary. I imagine that tomorrow morning at a Hampton Inn will be a bit disappointing after the last two mornings; oh well.
After breakfast we came back to the hotel room, which I now realized had quite the musty smell to it and upon opening the window we discovered a beautiful view of flowers and trees – it almost looked like the edge of a rainforest. The clothing we washed in the sink the previous night were still damp and had to be laid out in the back of the car to finally dry out. After finishing getting ready for the day we headed out to the courtyard to get in a game of chess on the large chess board while Layla ran back and forth across the board and ran around with pieces set off to the sides. Darcy made a valiant effort, but she made a fatal mistake (playing against me) and lost her King to me. We then made for the car to begin the day’s journey.
Today we will see Hampton Court Palace, Avebury and then make our way past Bath and Bristol to Southern Wales where we will stay in Newport. More this evening.