Roemin abit

  After a good breakfast we set out to find the historic  Forge Mill needle museum  on northern outskirts  of the nearby town of Redditch . The town dominated the craft of needle making and is believed to have supplied 90% of the worlds needles in Victorian times. Nowadays there is just one manufacture in the town and the trade is dominated by cheap Chinese and Indian products. The Forge Mill is the last remaining water powered scouring mill where needles were cleaned and polished before being packaged. Much of the needle making work was done in dozens of smaller home working 'factories', often by women and children, before finally cleaning and polishing in the then 'state of the art' water powered scouring mill. The old mill building is preserved in its original state and has exhibits and videos showing the whole needle manufacturing process. There are many exhibits from the biggest manufactures of the day including Milward who also made fishing hooks and rods tha...

  We set off late morning for a drive into Warwickshire stopping at the attractive village of Henley in Arden to have lunch on the way. The village has a mile long high street of old buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants. As it is Monday the lunch choice is more limited but we parked in the North car park and walked down to the Black Swan where we were seated outside with some tables of (mainly) ladies who lunch. It was a nice warm sunny start to the week and we enjoyed their 2 course set lunch before taking a stroll down the high street for coffee before the short drive to Studley which is just outside Redditch. The castle is the most recent addition to the Warner Hotels group and has been extensively modernised with 200 rooms, a spa suite and show lounge. The original building houses the reception and some small public rooms for afternoon tea and cosy cocktail bars. There are 20 bedrooms in the old castle and we had one of these on the 1st floor. The castle was built as a st...

We are going to Studley Castle for a last minute, discounted, 2 night break at a Warner hotel tomorrow.

It's our last day in the Beausite hotel and another excellent breakfast. After leaving our cases at reception we are chilling out in the hotel garden while Mark and Katie walk into Gorey. We will get the bus in later and meet them for crab sandwiches or a Sunday roast. When we got to Gorey Pier we all walked back into the old village passing the colourful old fisherman's cottages and had a lazy last lunch at a good restaurant in the village. By the time we had walked back to the bus stop it was 4 pm and time to make our way to the airport and home.  We arrived home at 10:45pm after 1 bus,  2 taxis, 1 Easyjet and 2 car journeys ( we left ours at Katie's) so its just under 7 hrs from Gorey beach to my armchair.  Another epic journey and another lovely family break in Jersey. 

Its sunny and we are going to St Brelades Bay for the day. It could be a  shorts day.(ed: it was)  By the time we were ready to get the bus we had beautiful blue sky and it stayed that way all day. We had to wait for Mark to walk from Smugglers Cove to the Golden Sands, so we squeezed in an ice cream before sharing a tapas board and a large shandy each in the new Beach Club. We were dining early in order to get a bus back to Grouville so we filled in the time paddling along the sea shore and chilling in the promenade gardens for a while, before heading to the Oyster Box seafood restaurant for cocktails and an excellent fishy dinner. We managed to catch the last bus from St Brelade. It was more like the hen party express or football special with World Cup party groups going into St Helier. We got back to Grouville by 11 o'clock, just in time to watch a bit of football ourselves before falling asleep (no party in the hotel).

Another grey start, but it IS going to get sunny today. Well it tried, but was still mainly cloudy and breezy. As we went to the Underground German Hospital tunnels for a few hours, it didn't really matter. The hospital is now a museum that covers the time of the German occupation and ultimately the liberation in a series of displays as you walk through the tunnels. We caught the bus back to the coast and while we continued on to St Aubin, Mark and Katie jumped off and walked around the bay. We met them in Old Court House overlooking the harbour entrance and had hot chocolate and liqueur coffee as the sun came out. We have done plenty of paces today so we are eating in the hotel restaurant again tonight. The food is very good.