Ladies who lunch

A spur of the moment lunch stop on a rainy, congested drive from Nottinghamshire to Essex; pity we hadn't planned it or we could maybe have arranged a blipmeet with TickyTocky. This is the palatial ladies' room in the George Inn, Stamford (more detail in the extras). It's a magnificent coaching inn; we'd sat in the small bar near the front entrance for our steak sandwiches, so I hadn't realised how vast it is till I went in search of the ladies' before we left. Half a dozen rooms of increasing magnificence, all stuffed to the gills with cheerful people eating and drinking.

Then it was back to the purgatory of British roads on a wet bank holiday in December: grey skies, grey roads, drab fields, slow-moving traffic. It took us a good hour longer than was theoretically necessary to get to Great Dunmow. We hate staying in airport hotels so much that we'd splashed out on a room in the Saracen's Head. It too is a fine coaching inn, albeit nowhere near as splendid as the George, and the food is just pub food dressed up. Still, it was a relaxing way to spend our last evening before flying home.

Earlier, a short,wet walk with my two younger sisters on the university campus in Nottingham. They have four dogs between them; I was amused by the tangle of long leads, so I've used a couple more extras on the leads and the happy dogs on the end of them.