Some things exceed our expectations don’t they? Which rather has me believing that we should all be wandering around expecting the worst and finding ourselves daily delighted by the really rather lovely. It has been one of those lovely weekends I want to treasure for always. Expectations were indeed exceeded. There was a hotel I had expected to be corporate in the extreme and which turned out to be holy beautiful. Kath and I sat in the midst of a Jacobean manor at two o’clock on Saturday morning, giggling as we looked over a little balcony on the breathtaking, fresco painted chapel beneath us, marking the moment as one we would always remember just for the sheer privilege of looking upon something so lovely. Shoes off, putting the worlds to rights in whispers fitting to our candlelit surroundings and closing our eyes occasionally to just enjoy the silence and the heavenly smell of a real log fire burning close by. Just one blissful moment in a weekend that has held a whole host of them.
There was food: a pulled pork wrap to die for, halloumi with a butternut squash puree, a brownie with peanut anglaise, a breakfast of salami and melon, a Bloody Mary, chili bruschetta, Bodega olives, cinnamon pastries and a bacon butty to die for.
There was music: me forcing a willing someone to listen to every song I have ever loved in the early hours of Sunday morning. A busker singing Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah in the centre of Chester, choral music playing in every nook and crannie of the hotel.
There was merryment. Much laughter. Wine from Argentine and Italy. A long browse around Cath Kidston. A game that involved describing each other in three words. My face when I was informed that they consider me to be fun, muddled and home and cosy. And yep, without a doubt that is four words, but clearly there is too much of me to describe in three. And let’s not even get me started on “muddled”. Readers, I, your deeply organised housekeeper, am not muddled. Am I?? Oh Ok, maybe a little bit. Maybe a lot. Hell, I’m muddled what ya going to do about it??
Anyways. There was home. Home cannot be a person, but apparently, to my friends, I AM home. There was a little boy who arrived home from a weekend with his cousins full of football and Ben 10 figures and a reluctance to go back to school after twelve days off. There was tea in my own mug. A gorgeous gift sent all the way from America. Cuddles. A pile of laundry a mile high. A browse around a supermarket I never visit, so that I could arrive home with an armful of treats…
Yes. Expectations have been much succeeded. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could press replay and live lovely days over and over again?
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