Affpuddle Excitement, Part 1

The cute church in Affpuddle

This weekend was a surprise weekend.  My friend H has turned 31 and was coping as best she could. (I have come to realise that 31 is so much worse than 30 – you are in your 30’s then!)  So her boyf P decided to give her a weekend away, with some of her friends, but she was none the wiser.  She was packed onto a train and given some instructions, whilst the rest of us scrambled to get to Affpuddle before she did.

As I went to leave work, the heavens opened, I literally thundered and lightninged.  In between these cracks of thunder, the DoE was having his 90^th Birthday, so there were the sounds of the 62 gun salute.  Does this seem like a strange number to anyone else?  By the time I got to Hammersmith, I was soaked to the bone.  Then Marks and Spencers ripped me of £12 for an umbrella – was it going to dry my hair as well?

On the way down, we found out that poor H was stuck in Eastleigh due to a poor person who had died under a train.  She was going to be severely delayed.  We headed to the cottage, after deciding that it would ruin the surprise that there were other people coming, so we would let her figure out how to get to her destination on her own.  A bit mean huh.

Affpuddle is a small place, a village of less than 100 people.  P had rented a grade two listed cottage with a thatched roof.  It was well cute with small doorways and creaky floorboards.  The cottage was likely, older than my country.  Oh and a horrid well out the front – which reminded me of the Ring and creeped me out all weekend.

We arrived at said cottage and discovered that they had not left us tp.  So we headed out in search of a shop.  We figured that Briantspuddle was a bit bigger so might have a corner shop or something.  We saw these two women parked up having a chat so decided to ask them for directions.  I was elected to go chat as with my accent it would sound plausible that I was lost.  So I got out of the car and asked ‘Excuse me please could you tell me where there is a shop?’  The woman looked at me like I had three heads –‘Shop?!  You want a shop? This is the country there are no shops!’ (she may as well have asked if I was local at all)  ‘But I only want a small shop, we are renting a cottage and there is no toilet paper’, ‘There are no shops in the country’.  Right.  So then the other woman in the other car pipes up, I turn to find her holding out a roll of toilet paper.  She says apologetically, ‘this has been rolling around in the back of my car, but should get you through till you find a shop.’  Ok.  Thanks.

Shop, you want a shop!  Became our catch phrase for the weekend. 

 

So we decided to time how long the drive to the station from the cottage would be.  As we approached the station only about five minutes away, we found a shop.  Seems that the woman may have been a bit crazy.  We stocked up on the bits and pieces that had been forgotten and headed back to the cottage. 

P went to get H, which J and I strew rose petals from the door to the bedroom, and poured some prosecco, as we thought that it would be hilarious to hide up there.  We watched from my bedroom window for the car, but got too excited and decided to take up our stations early.  About two seconds after we were settled they walked in.  H was very surprised and excited that we were all here and we proceeded to drink a lot of wine.  J and I cooked a yummy dinner of Fajitas – both crispy chicken and plain chicken.  Oh lala.

We took a wee walk around Affpuddle.  The church yard was beautiful.  The graves were very old. The light at sunset was beautiful and we got some beautiful photos.  And then took a walk down the main road, where we saw loads of other thatched cottages.  It is a very stunning and cute village.  If you could even call it a village.
  

That night we were knackered, it seems that country air is truly tiring and we were all in bed by 11pm, which was good cause the next day we were off to the Jurassic coast in search of dinosaurs!!!!