Originally
when we booked the holiday, Tuesday 22nd July was to be the day we started our journey home,
on QF10 departing around 10pm. However,
sometime in May Qantas made major changes to its schedule and QF10 switched to
departing at 1pm. As we expected
to have plenty to do from our Winchester base, we opted to switch our flight home to the following day, a decision aided by Andrew being able to book two rooms
at the Hilton Doubletree near Heathrow Airport with points for the additional
final night.
On the
morning of the 22nd we packed our luggage in a car for the
final time , said goodbye to Winchester, which had provided an excellent base, and
headed north for the third time in five days up the M3; this time to Heathrow. On arrival we quickly checked in, moved our
luggage into the rooms, and then headed back out in the car to find somewhere
to eat.
Our
destination for lunch was Bray, a small village not too far from Heathrow and
Windsor, famous for being the home to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck
restaurant. Elle had been very open over
many years about her dream dinner being at the Fat Duck, and Andrew tried very
hard to make this happen but was unsuccessful (bookings can only be done
online, 2 months in advance, and places go within seconds of the system opening
them up). Despite this, we decided to visit the village of Bray to see the Fat Duck and to get lunch somewhere else.
Once we found
Bray (the UK car didn't have GPS) we parked the car and walked the length of
the main street, admiring the lovely whitewashed brick old buildings.
Despite the small size of the village, and
knowing the Fat Duck was on the main street, it wasn't immediately obvious
where it was. However, eventually we
spotted a small menu on a wall, so we were able to take some photos.
We then
sought out a place to eat, and could only find two options. Fortunately we chose well, with the Crown Hotel, which we later found out was owned by Heston Blumenthal (So Andrew can
say that he took Elle to a Heston restaurant!), and was excellent. The old
hotel has a very traditional English feel, with low internal roof heights,
exposed wooden rafters, and hand pumped beers. Noting the children they offered us the option
to eat in the rear garden which was an excellent choice. The kids could play around before eating and
we could all enjoy the glorious warm blue sky day.
The fish and
chips and mini burger were popular, but the highlight was the Elle’s Eton Mess, which she had
to share with everybody.
After lunch
we drove to Windsor, found a great park near the town centre, and walked up to
Windsor Castle. Although a relatively
quick visit, we managed to see all the highlights and walked around most of the
accessible areas.
One of the
highlights was the magnificent St Georges Chapel, in which we spent 30-45
minutes, taking in all of the key features (including the many royal tombs, e.g Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, George VI and Elizabeth the Queen Mother)..
Another was
the State Apartments, featuring the Queen Mary's dollhouse. While walking past glass
cabinets of memorabilia, Andrew was amazed to see the gun shot that killed Lord
Nelson (connecting well to his uniform with gun shot hole from the Naval Museum
in Greenwich).
After being
the last to leave the castle at 5pm closing time, we walked the nearby streets
of Windsor and did a small amount of shopping in the many tourist shops.
After
dropping Elle and the kids back at the hotel, Andrew drove the hire car to the
nearby AVIS airport drop off point. This
normally routine task then took a turn for the worse, and raised stress levels
to red. On successive mornings in
Winchester, we returned to our car and noted modest damage had occurred
overnight. One was very minor vertical
scratch, the other a much more noticeable 6-8cm scrape, over two door
panels. As per usual practice, Andrew
reported these upon check-in, expecting a response of ‘thanks for letting us
know, they are minor, don’t worry’.
Instead the check-in person indicated that all damage had to be
recorded, and an estimate of repair cost charged to the customer. The number quoted was £1000 (A$1600)!! This was a distressing end to the holiday,
but fortunately 3-4 weeks later, after we contacted customer service to request a fairer
outcome, AVIS dropped the entire charge, providing excellent holiday closure
karma.