Weekend shopping trip to the UK
Last weekend we flew to the UK for a double barrelled visit, my arms are quite tired as a result. The reason for the trip was to visit my brother, his wife Helen, new baby daughter Isabelle whom I hadn't yet met and in addition, to try and grab some bargains at the January sales.
We had a very succesful trip on reflection. The moment we had picked up the car from the rental company I was hammering down the motorway heading for the Ashford Outlet Shopping Centre and the glorious bargains awaiting us.
After first grabbing some lunch at Spudulike (jacket potato store), although I was very tempted by the Harry Ramsden Fish & Chips, we began our shopping marathon, dashing in and out of the sports stores and designer clothing stores.
In the Nike store Petra found a couple of nice items, I also found 2 T-shirts so we met up at the till to pay for our desired purchases. The assistant informed us that if we take one more item from the store we would get if free with a '3 for 2' offer so I casually told Petra to run off and find something else. Around 15 minutes later and after the assistant had UN-tilled all of the previous items to serve other queueing customers, Petra returned with about 5 more items to ask for my opinion as to what would be the best 'free' item to take. Needless to say I didn't care by then, not only would I not be wearing it, but she doesn't usually take any notice of me anyway. Just as a side note, two of the items were not even her size!
It wasn't long before the time had run on and I was hurrying us back to the car because we'd already used the 4 hours of parking I had purchased. We slung all the bags in the back and jumped into the front ready for our journey back to Maidstone to check into the hotel. As I turned the key in the ignition on the car I looked at the in car clock only to realise that I'd been relying on my watch for time which I had not yet altered for the 1 hour time difference. Yes, I know, plonker! We actually got back out of the car and spent another hour buying stuff.
The hotel is really nice, it's also got a gym and pool which we made use of. The full English breakfast was delicious and even though I tried I couldn't resist filling my plate two mornings in a row. The free wifi in the rooms was also convenient. I did notice the difference in general customer service between the UK and Czech, but living in Europe for the past 2 years has also influenced me, for example one morning when we came downstairs I automatically said good morning to someone as you would do out of politeness here, but it made me chuckle when the woman paused, then stared at me like I was an alien because I spoke to someone I didn't know.
Earlier I mentioned the small issue of forgetting the one hour time difference, well it seemed that it would be an issue more than once over the weekend. You see, I also took my alarm clock with me and also forgot to adjust for the difference. I woke from my slumber nice and early on Saturday morning and scheduled myself to be up in time to hit the gym as soon as it opened at 8:00am. I nudged Petra a couple of times and made sure she was out of bed to maintain the schedule with me. She clicked on the TV for some background noise whilst we jumped into our gym gear, problem was, as she looked at the news on the TV, the time clock was also being displayed, clearly showing that I had got us up an hour too early, meaning that in reality it was only 7.00am in the UK and what would have been 6.00am Prague time! Of course, she wasn’t too pleased. We decided that to make the most of the time we could go out for 30 min run before the gym opened, so we made our way down to reception and only then realised that it was absolutely pouring with rain. Well, we turned back round again and walked back to our bedroom where we sat for a while and waited for the gym to open. Hahaha, didn’t quite turn out as I planned.After Gym, shower and breakfast we left for Bluewater Shopping Centre at Dartford, and had a stroke of fortune in one of the stores. We spent some time in the BENCH store choosing clothes which were well priced in the sales I took them to the till where I found out from the assistant that we would receive an extra 40% off the sale prices. I simply asked her to hang on to the items we had already chosen and continued for another half hour filling my bags. We are really happy with our bargains.
When we arrived back from shopping we still had time to make the most of the health club facilities, and donned our swimming costumes and headed for the pool. Oh, it was lovely, a warm 30 degrees water temperature unlike the 26 degrees I have to suffer in pools in Prague!On Saturday night I competed in and finally won a colouring competition, it's true. However, it was only against my brother, wife, sister in law, and her little niece (who initiated the competition). My creativity really came through.Sunday morning was just right for a run along the river, the same route we used to take when we lived in Maidstone and fancied a nice run along with a session in the gym at David Lloyd. It was pretty muddy along the towpath but still enjoyable to stretch our lungs and legs trying to burn off the sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms, hashbrowns and toast that was to come. The picturesque river path never changes, only the boats moored along the edges come and go adding colour and shape to the otherwise permanance of the winding waterway.
I had a go on one of those Wii thingys and discovered that my skiing is no better simulated than it is in real life. Lunch couldn’t have been any better, and I ate it slowly savouring the flavours and tastes of a perfectly cooked Sunday lunch. Chicken and stuffing pockets wrapped in bacon, roast lamb, small roast potatoes, mini yorkshire puddings, carrots and fresh green beans all topped with rich gravy. Followed by sticky toffee pudding and custard, of course I ate too much but what the hell, it was magnificent.
Our flight back was due to leave at 6pm on Sunday and we still needed to take the rental car back to the office. I hadn’t noticed that the flight would leave from the North terminal, so in fact I took the car back to South terminal, and only realised the mistake when we went to the check-in desk. This was not good as we were already way behind time, and now needed to jump onto the shuttle to the North terminal, so we started running............. Although check-in, security and passport control was quite stressful because of the delays and because we hadn’t enough time till the flight would leave, but we eventually got to the gate in time to board only because it was late.
It was just a 3 day trip back home, but it was great. We visited with family, and shopped to our hearts content, ate great food and enjoyed exercising in a much better facility that we are now used to here. Thanks everyone for helping us enjoy our little holiday.
We had a very succesful trip on reflection. The moment we had picked up the car from the rental company I was hammering down the motorway heading for the Ashford Outlet Shopping Centre and the glorious bargains awaiting us.
After first grabbing some lunch at Spudulike (jacket potato store), although I was very tempted by the Harry Ramsden Fish & Chips, we began our shopping marathon, dashing in and out of the sports stores and designer clothing stores.
In the Nike store Petra found a couple of nice items, I also found 2 T-shirts so we met up at the till to pay for our desired purchases. The assistant informed us that if we take one more item from the store we would get if free with a '3 for 2' offer so I casually told Petra to run off and find something else. Around 15 minutes later and after the assistant had UN-tilled all of the previous items to serve other queueing customers, Petra returned with about 5 more items to ask for my opinion as to what would be the best 'free' item to take. Needless to say I didn't care by then, not only would I not be wearing it, but she doesn't usually take any notice of me anyway. Just as a side note, two of the items were not even her size!
It wasn't long before the time had run on and I was hurrying us back to the car because we'd already used the 4 hours of parking I had purchased. We slung all the bags in the back and jumped into the front ready for our journey back to Maidstone to check into the hotel. As I turned the key in the ignition on the car I looked at the in car clock only to realise that I'd been relying on my watch for time which I had not yet altered for the 1 hour time difference. Yes, I know, plonker! We actually got back out of the car and spent another hour buying stuff.
The hotel is really nice, it's also got a gym and pool which we made use of. The full English breakfast was delicious and even though I tried I couldn't resist filling my plate two mornings in a row. The free wifi in the rooms was also convenient. I did notice the difference in general customer service between the UK and Czech, but living in Europe for the past 2 years has also influenced me, for example one morning when we came downstairs I automatically said good morning to someone as you would do out of politeness here, but it made me chuckle when the woman paused, then stared at me like I was an alien because I spoke to someone I didn't know.
Earlier I mentioned the small issue of forgetting the one hour time difference, well it seemed that it would be an issue more than once over the weekend. You see, I also took my alarm clock with me and also forgot to adjust for the difference. I woke from my slumber nice and early on Saturday morning and scheduled myself to be up in time to hit the gym as soon as it opened at 8:00am. I nudged Petra a couple of times and made sure she was out of bed to maintain the schedule with me. She clicked on the TV for some background noise whilst we jumped into our gym gear, problem was, as she looked at the news on the TV, the time clock was also being displayed, clearly showing that I had got us up an hour too early, meaning that in reality it was only 7.00am in the UK and what would have been 6.00am Prague time! Of course, she wasn’t too pleased. We decided that to make the most of the time we could go out for 30 min run before the gym opened, so we made our way down to reception and only then realised that it was absolutely pouring with rain. Well, we turned back round again and walked back to our bedroom where we sat for a while and waited for the gym to open. Hahaha, didn’t quite turn out as I planned.After Gym, shower and breakfast we left for Bluewater Shopping Centre at Dartford, and had a stroke of fortune in one of the stores. We spent some time in the BENCH store choosing clothes which were well priced in the sales I took them to the till where I found out from the assistant that we would receive an extra 40% off the sale prices. I simply asked her to hang on to the items we had already chosen and continued for another half hour filling my bags. We are really happy with our bargains.
When we arrived back from shopping we still had time to make the most of the health club facilities, and donned our swimming costumes and headed for the pool. Oh, it was lovely, a warm 30 degrees water temperature unlike the 26 degrees I have to suffer in pools in Prague!On Saturday night I competed in and finally won a colouring competition, it's true. However, it was only against my brother, wife, sister in law, and her little niece (who initiated the competition). My creativity really came through.Sunday morning was just right for a run along the river, the same route we used to take when we lived in Maidstone and fancied a nice run along with a session in the gym at David Lloyd. It was pretty muddy along the towpath but still enjoyable to stretch our lungs and legs trying to burn off the sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms, hashbrowns and toast that was to come. The picturesque river path never changes, only the boats moored along the edges come and go adding colour and shape to the otherwise permanance of the winding waterway.
I had a go on one of those Wii thingys and discovered that my skiing is no better simulated than it is in real life. Lunch couldn’t have been any better, and I ate it slowly savouring the flavours and tastes of a perfectly cooked Sunday lunch. Chicken and stuffing pockets wrapped in bacon, roast lamb, small roast potatoes, mini yorkshire puddings, carrots and fresh green beans all topped with rich gravy. Followed by sticky toffee pudding and custard, of course I ate too much but what the hell, it was magnificent.
Our flight back was due to leave at 6pm on Sunday and we still needed to take the rental car back to the office. I hadn’t noticed that the flight would leave from the North terminal, so in fact I took the car back to South terminal, and only realised the mistake when we went to the check-in desk. This was not good as we were already way behind time, and now needed to jump onto the shuttle to the North terminal, so we started running............. Although check-in, security and passport control was quite stressful because of the delays and because we hadn’t enough time till the flight would leave, but we eventually got to the gate in time to board only because it was late.
It was just a 3 day trip back home, but it was great. We visited with family, and shopped to our hearts content, ate great food and enjoyed exercising in a much better facility that we are now used to here. Thanks everyone for helping us enjoy our little holiday.
posted by Tyler at 4:08 pm
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