I'm pleased to report that Mrs PBT's and I both returned negative results on our Covid antigen tests, and are now cleared to board our cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2 tomorrow afternoon.
We are staying overnight at a hotel that's within half an hour's drive from the port - Southampton, and are now enjoying a relaxing evening, following what has been quite a fraught day.
Internet and IT issues with Mrs PBT's phone didn't help, although I have to say the drive-thru test centre, at Gatwick, worked well. So after having our nasal swabs taken, we had a 30 minute wait for the results to be emailed through to us.
We drove into nearly Crawley, and parked up. Mine came through OK, but for some reason, the email icon on Eileen's i- phone vanished from the screen. "You wouldn't get that with an Android," I told her, which probably wasn't the wisest thing to have said.
Fortunately, my suggestion of a quick reboot, did the trick, and after she too returned a negative test it was all systems go. We headed for Southampton, and our pre-booked hotel and parking place.
After turning off the M25, we had a relaxing drive via the A3 and then the A272. The countryside as we crossed from Sussex into Hampshire, was glorious, and as we neared the Meon Valley, it moved on another notch on the scale of superlatives.
This stretch through West Meon and Meonstoke, brought back memories of walking the South Downs Way, thirteen years ago. We had a spot of difficulty finding the hotel, thanks to the sat-nav on Mrs PBT's phone.
We stopped for a spot of shopping at Wickham, a large and picturesque village, with an attractive looking Fuller's pub - the King's Head. As we were running late, I thought it wise not to suggest stopping for a drink, but also because the reason for our last minute shopping was me leaving my wash bag at home.
I won't go into the reasons, but it was easily solved with the purchase of a few washing accoutrements from the well-stocked, Co-op, overlooking the village square.
The hotel was comfortable and all one might expect from a modern, corporate hotel, although I didn't know that Ronald McDonald ran his own chain of hotels! Actually the Macdonald group run a chain of hotels both here in the UK and in Ireland and its CEO is called Donald, rather than Ronald.
No decent beer of course and whilst we could have driven off somewhere, I'd already left the car in the long stay carpark and deposited the keys at reception.
So Perroni it was, and some good, but rather expensive, cod and chips. We are waiting now for the taxi that will take us to the cruise terminal, and once on board we can start to properly relax.
2 comments:
Have a good time, Paul.
We used Macdonalds hotels a fair bit 15 or so years ago when they were decent value and had big family rooms.
Thanks, Martin. We are onboard ship now, having passed all checks, and showing our boarding cards umpteen times.
We don't sail for another three hours, so there's plenty of time to explore the ship.
We weren't overly impressed with the Macdonald hotel. The Holiday Inn we stayed at last time, was much nicer, but was a longer journey to the port, as it was just outside Winchester.
Good luck with the ticking. I look forward to catching up on your recent escapades, next time we get an internet connection.
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