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My 38th Birthday Treat - A trip up Bournville Boulevard
Posted by Webby at January 28, 2007 09:32 PM | Comments (0)
As a special surprise for my forthcoming 38th birthday, Jilly organised a lovely weekend away for the pair of us this weekend. On an organised coach trip, Jilly and I spent four hours on the Chocolate Highway, travelling up Bournville Boulevard [actually, it was Bournville Lane, we drove up!] to my birthday destination...Cadbury World!
With Kieran at his dad's, and Evelyn staying at Nanna and Poppy's, Jilly and I joined the coach in Huddersfield on Saturday morning and arrived in Stratford [for the first leg of our trip] at lunch time. Negotiating our way past hundreds of other tourists, we took in all the Shakespeare sites. Unfortunately, as I temporarily misplaced my camera [Jilly tells me that I need a man-bag!], I haven't got the mandatory photo's of Shakespeare's birthplace, though the house itself would have been obscured by the ubiquitous [they really were everywhere] Japanese [well...er..East Asian, certainly!] tourists, anyway. We had lunch, bought a few gifts for the children and then re-joined the coach for the hotel.
The Allesley Hotel was pleasant enough, though, like many hotels, in need of a bit of a refurb. Having settled into our room at about 17:00, we had a bit of a rest before eating a lovely carvery dinner in the restaurant and then visiting the local pub and micro-brewery, The Rainbow Inn [quite literally] next door to the hotel.
After a short drive from the hotel, we arrived at Cadbury World where, after a period of slight confusion, we joined the interactive tour of the factory. We were there most of the day [leaving at 15:45] and found something interesting to do all the while. Typically, we spent a fortune in the biggest Cadbury shop in the world, but ate very little chocolate indeed.
Jilly and I had a lovely weekend; as ever, Jilly came up trumps with my birthday surprise. My only regret [though not one that Jilly shared] is that we didn't see an Umpar Lumpars [I love those liddle orange guys!]
I'll add a link to some photo's ASAP...er...which could be months at the current rate...
