So Bloody Unromantic!-part one

We need to have a talk.

Robin Hood Bay - not quite bikini weather, but still beautiful

A serious talk.

About romance!

I opened and shut my mouth, like a guppy, but couldn’t get the words out.

My Englishman was frantically driving us north for a romantic weekend away, our first in about seven months. He’d planned it all and even organised a day off work so we could head away on our nudge-nudge-wink-wink weekend.

I didn’t know where we were going.

At first the mystery was sweet, and left me to dream.

I imagined far away places, air tickets, beaches and bikinis and sunshine. And uninterrupted time alone together.

We had seven people living in our three bedroomed terrace – my three kids – my Englishman and I and my nephew and his girlfriend who, backpacking from Australia, had taken up residence on a futon in our lounge.

Time alone would be fantastic!

But then he’d arrived home from work to find me in tears, not knowing what to pack…

‘Pack something warm,’ he said.

‘For the warm?’

Pina coladas, and sunshine and topless sunbathing and swimming in the sea…

‘No, like mountain gear’.

We’re going to the mountains?

Personally Hawaii, or the Caribbean would have done, but at least we’ll be alone together.

We started off on our journey, i trudged our gear out to the car and my Englishman left instructions with the nephew about what to do with the kids and where to reach us.

‘You can contact us on this number, at my parents!’

FFS!

A dirty weekend away, the first in ages, and we’ll spend it not-making-love in the twin single beds of his boyhood! GRRRRRRR! This was too much! How bloody unromantic!

Fuming up the motorway.

Yes, mister, we really need to talk about romance!

By the time we arrived in North Yorkshire I had almost reconciled myself with the disappointment. It was nice to see his parents, and we were too tired to get up to anything much anyway so I settled into a chaste sleep between the floral sheets. There is always something just a little bit weird about getting up to nookie in his old room, anyway..

The next day we woke late and whiled away a lovely day discovering the coves around Robin Hood Bay in the whistling wind, and the beauty of the market town of Helmsley. I wistfully looked at dresses that might make do for a wedding dress… not that we were getting married any time soon… I was never getting married again… it was just so, you know.. so I could be prepared.

Yes I loved him dearly. Yes I’d sold up and moved to England to live with him to see if we could live together. It had worked, we were happy. The kids were happy, and settled and everything was going well. There was that one little problem with immigration and being made redudant, but our relationship had been going well even under the tremendous stress of the past few months.

I’d see something in him that night in Paris. When we’d said goodbye on the platform of the Gare du Nord, I didn’t believe it was goodbye, for ever.

The following day we set off to meet old friends in Northallerton. It was fun meeting some of his oldest friends, a guy who’d known him back in college days. We drove back along the country roads, across gorgeous green James Herriot country.

I had no idea the drive back to his parents was taking far too long.

It wasn’t until dusk that I began to wonder where we were. Driving along the deserted road with only wind turbine centurions standing to attention by the side of the road for company.

I hadn’t seen them before on the way up to Northallerton.

The road started to wind up into the hills.

Was it this hilly before?

We passed a road sign pointing directions to the M6.  Isn’t the M6 on the western side of the country?

And then finally the giveaway signpost.

‘Welcome to the Lakes District’

He pulled the car into a beautiful gracious hotel in Ambleside and we settled in for a most romantic evening.

Continued…So Bloody Unromantic- part two

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