A weekend away

Last weekend, I met a friend for the weekend. We met halfway between our respective homes, which are very many miles apart. We had both decided that we did not want to spend too much money, while having as good a time as possible, and did the following, to this end:

-My friend found a hotel with good reviews and a reasonable two night with one night's dinner deal, and booked us in for that. (It was a very nice hotel, and the food, especially breakfast, was excellent.)

-She also suggested a book-swapping arrangement; we each bought some extra books with us, so got to read some different things from usual, without needing to buy them.

-I had initially planned to take the train, but discovering that even by booking ahead the cost would be double that of my petrol, I reluctantly decided to drive. (I realise this is not ideal from an environmental point of view, though my car is at least small and pretty fuel-efficent.)

-Driving would mean of course that I wouldn't be able to drive or listen to my ipod, so I rented the audio book of ' The Small Bachelor' a P.G Wodehouse novel, from the library. This was excellently well read and entertained me for very nearly all my journey there and back, and my husband is now listening to it on his commute. £1.50 well-spent.

-For once, I planned ahead and took sandwiches and some extra apples for the journey so that I would not need to stop for food.

-While at the hotel, we took full advantage of the very good English breakfast, which it suited us to eat late, meaning we did not need lunch.

-Instead, we had afternoon tea back at the hotel which took us through to late evening and a plate of cheese and bottle of wine. (I realise that from a nutritional point of view, this sounds pretty poor, but one can't have everything, and this was part of the fun.)

-We were staying a little way out of town, but walked in rather than driving, so as to save the bother and expense of parking, as well as getting some exercise and seeing the sights.