Road trip

Thursday 19th August

Chris and I started the adventure in Reading at the Hilton on Thursday night - we didn't arrive at the hotel until 03:00 am. Suffice to say we were very tired the next day.

Friday 20th August

Chris had to get up at 06:30 for a meeting in Reading, whilst I took advantage of the facilities - a good stretch and C2 session in the gym, then I hit the pool for 30 minutes and had a relax in the steam room and sauna. I checked out and took the train to London and explored Portabello Road and visited the Brand and Advertising Museum which was really good.

I met Chris in London after he had finished his business meetings and we ate at Jamie's Italian (again) in Covent Gardens:

Starter: Buffalo Mozzarella and Wild Boar Salami
Pre Main: Fresh fish, calamari and sardines fried in a light batter
Main: Lamb chops with fresh mint, chopped nuts and pesto

We headed back to Reading to pick up the car (bikes and bags) and set off to Kent to stay with my friends Louise and Andrew and their two boys in Tonbridge.

Saturday 21st August

Woke up to an overcast grey day but that didn't dampen our adventurous spirit and we all set off to Penhurst Place and Gardens just outside of Tonbridge. It has lots of fun playground stuff for the boys and a nice walk and ornamental gardens for the adults. We enjoyed a cup of tea in the grounds before setting off for out lunch at the Bottle House Inn. We were seated in a cool part of the pub (a little niche just for the 6 of us):

Starter for all 6: A pint of prawns, artisan breads, olives, salami, morzarella and tomato and onion salad
Main: 21 day aged grilled steak with a fresh green salad
To process all the food we had just devoured, Louise and Andrew took us back home via the scenic route and Andrew pointed out a number of his biking routes around the area. At one point the hill we were driving up looked impossible to tackle on a bike.
We had a fun game of football in the garden when we returned home and got thoroughly thrashed by 2 kids under the age of 8. After the boys went to bed we watched 'Shutter Island' the most twisted plot line of which I haven't seen in a long time.

Sunday 22nd August

We set off from Tonbridge at about 09:30 towards River Cottage in Axminster. We stopped at the busiest service station in the world to pick up some supplies for the journey and later on scooted right past Stonehenge.
We arrived at River Cottage at about 13:30 to be greeted by very heavy rain. We walked down the hill (couldn't be bothered to wait for the tractor ride) and took loads of photos on the way down. We explored the Kitchen Garden and the Urban Garden and then walked around the various stalls that had bread, cheese, jams, chutneys and other stuff for sale. I got some lovely local beeswax lip balm for a reasonable sum of £1.50.
The highlight of the afternoon was:

Lunch: fresh brick-oven cooked spiced mackerel with salad and mint & yoghurt dressing - yummy.
We attended Ray Smith's talk and demonstration about how to make your own salami which was really interesting and we had a nibble of his venison salami at the end of the talk.
At 16:30 we checked into Park Farm (the cottage at River Cottage HQ) and were directed to our room for the night - it was exactly like I had pictured it. Very quaint with creaky floor boards, latched doors and fresh wild flowers in jam jars. The room was painted a soft blue and we had a big comfy bed with white bed linen. We decided that we should go for a quick bike ride to Lyme Regis at this point because the weather had started to clear up.

The journey to Lyme Regis was really fun - pretty much down hill all the way through secluded lanes lined with green overhanging trees and little cottages tucked into the hill side. The descent into the bay was very steep and Chris and I decided to get off the bikes so we could explore the village more easily. We stopped at a good vantage point for strawberries and clotted cream- lovely.
The journey back was up a very steep hill (I pushed my bike up it for fear of falling off). On the return ride it started to rain and we got fairly wet with some soft drizzle. The unfortunate thing about the weather was the clouds were so dense and grey that we couldn't see any views on our ascent of the hill. We were glad to get back to River Cottage and chilled out on the bed with a good book.