I chose a coronation chicken sandwich which was delicious. Mr C’s choice arrived as a sandwich rather than the baguette that he had ordered. This was swiftly replaced.

We parked in the long stay carpark which involves a short walk into the village. We couldn’t resist visiting the ‘Man Cave’ with its eclectic range of stock. I was quite taken with the model of a police telephone box reminding me of the Tardis in Dr Who but neither of us were tempted to make a purchase.

Mr C was disappointed to find that the cookshop was closed for the day with a sign on the door stating ‘sorry for any inconvenience’!

We visited the Broadway Museum and Art Gallery which is housed in a delightful old building, Tudor House. After visiting the museum Mr C encountered his third disappointment of the day… Stopping for liquid refreshments at a nearby tearoom Mr C chose a vanilla milkshake. He took a sip only to find that is was banana flavoured, one of the few food tastes he does not like. This too was quickly replaced.

By now it was time to return to the car and set off homeward. We intended to enjoy ‘fine dining’ on the patio but heavy traffic slowed us down so we dined in a local restaurant, The Water Rat instead.

At breakfast we were served with the first proper cup of tea of the weekend. Two individual pots of tea that were brewed to perfection.

Rain was forecast for the day so we headed of to Croome Court, a National Trust property. As we are National Trust members, entrance was free so it didn’t matter if we could only visit the house and not the wider estate.

As we arrived at Croome Court the heavens opened so we donned our waterproofs and hastily made our way to the ticket office entrance. After a brief visit to the shop, we made our way to the house via the church. The route we chose was mostly sheltered by trees so we kept dry. We passed the walled garden on the way, it was probably just as well it is only open at weekends because it wasn’t really the weather for visiting a walled garden.

We toured the house and then had lunch in the basement cafe before making our way to the RAF Defford Museum which is situated near to the entrance office. The weather had cleared up allowing us to see the wonderful vistas and landscaping created by Capability Brown as we walked to the museum. After exploring the military history of Croome we still had time to spare so we headed off to Broadway where I became reaquainted with and old friend, ‘The Hudson Guide’, but that is a story for another day.

Whilst in Broadway Mr C couldn’t resist the temptation of visiting a cook shop and we came away with two colanders. As we made our way back to the car I noticed an ice cream parlour which allowed us both to indulge in a ginger ice cream.

When we arrived back at the hotel we were greeted by the barman who had welcomed us on the first day of our stay. We started to engage in conversation with him but the hotel receptionist of the day interrupted. She was querying the basis of our stay and informing us that we had dinner bed and breakfast booked for two nights of our stay. We had booked on a bed and breakfast basis but had said we would be ‘dining in’ on the first evening. We were advised that we had another meal in the hotel, but we said that we already had made other arrangements, she said she would sort it out for us.

Once back in our room I washed my hair so that I looked more presentable after the day’s rain before we made our way to the final meal of the holiday which was in the L’amuse-Bouche Restaurant. As mentioned in a previous post, before the meal we were served  an Amuse-Bouche. On this occasion it was pork and pickled vegetables presented in a delightful way. I chose Nut and Vegetable stir fry  followed by passion fruit mousse with coconut ice cream. After our meal we returned to Colwall for a brief nightcap. Mr C wanted to return to our room to follow the exit polls for the UK general election on the TV. Luckily for me the TV was in a separate room allowing me to chill and wait for the result in the morning. I had already come to a conclusion on the result and what I had thought came to pass overnight.

Whilst chilling in the bedroom I noticed that the book of menus, emergency phone numbers and breakfast times, etc. had still not been returned to our room…