Never go back?

I had been back to England only once in four years; a five day Christmas visit to friends and family, so when I made the radical decision to go back for a weeks holiday my husband looked at me, with a puzzled expression, “Are you sure”? he said.

He might well ask: I don’t miss England in the slightest, after four years of Cyprus life this is definitely home. I wanted to go for two main reasons, it was cooler so we could escape the searing heat for a week, and I was also curious to know whether going back, as a tourist, to the land of my birth, I would see things differently.

We had chosen to stay in Westbury, near Warminster in Wiltshire. My husband and I knew the area vaguely, but he thought a hotel that he had stayed in on a business trip would make a good base.  Wiltshire is an area where you are spoilt for choice with things to see and do. Apart from the picturesque country villages and wonderful countryside, we would be only 25 miles from the decadent ex-capital of Roman Britannia, Bath and the same distance to Salisbury with its gothic cathedral and well-preserved heritage; both cities, of course, having equal amounts of great shops.

Longleat safari park is a short drive, as is delightful Bradford-on-Avon with its quaint waterways and relics of its Roman origins, plus the famous prehistoric monument, Stonehenge, a world heritage site, is only 30 minutes away.

So finding things to do or see was not my concern; what thoughts I had about the trip turned to questions. After four years away would I be enchanted again by the land of my birth? Would my, now Cyprus-trained eyes, see things in a completely different way? As we were leaving on the 4th anniversary of moving into our new Cyprus home, would our UK return be particularly auspicious?

We arrived to 20 degrees and sunshine, which surprised us, as England was in the grip of some of the worst flooding since records began 250 years ago. The M4 seemed, miraculously, to have kept the rain back and Wiltshire, thankfully, hadn’t been affected. On the bus from the airport to collect our hire car we listened to the radio, it was playing ‘The Chart Show’ and ‘Take That’ were topping the charts. Was it 1995? Déjà vu started creeping in.

Our drive to the hotel (M25, M3, A303, A350) was filled with a landscape of green. Not just green but every shade, hue and croma, what an amazing sight and something I don’t remember noticing to this extent before. I saw that the black & white hides of the aimlessly munching Friesian cattle made a startling contrast to the lime-green, velvety grass carpet all around them. The hills and valleys we passed were a kaleidoscope of greens, from rich, deep forest-y green to sage, to emerald to olive. Whoever said England was a “green and pleasant land” was well-informed.

We were staying at The Garden House Hotel, (see pictures below) which has a country-house feel. Crystal chandeliers adorn the ceilings and the main rooms are decorated with dark red and gold elegant curtains, swags and tails frame the sash windows and, from a large bouquet on a dark wood dresser, came the heady scent of lily of the valley. The lady owner reminds us a great deal of our ex-neighbour, we bought our respective new houses at the same time in 1995. What was I saying about auspicious?

We were to have a room in “the annexe” – the hotel was fully booked – which is “just down the road”. This was a bit annoying as we knew the weather forecast wasn’t good, but large umbrellas were at our disposal. Our room was large, and newly decorated, and included free internet access, tea and coffee-making facilities a king-size bed and plasma TV. The bathroom had under floor-heating, softened water and a spa bath. I tried the spa bath one evening and found that the combination of shower gel and soft water through pressurised jets were the perfect ingredients to make me into a human soufflé. Within seconds the gel had made enough foam to rise above the edge of the bath and it wasn’t going to stop; I had to let the water out and have a shower to get rid of all the soap. I stayed with more conventional methods of bathing after that.

Westbury itself doesn’t have much going for it, it has subdued red-brick Edwardian architecture, charity shops a-plenty and an un-loved, un-kempt town hall. I asked at the library if the tourist information centre was open, they said it had closed down two years ago. There was a visitor centre, but every time I looked that was also closed.

Needless to say, the weather – apart from one day – was cold, wet and windy, you needed a jumper. This was August! We didn’t go for the weather but it does help. There were plenty of tourists in Salisbury braving the weather, and the Americans next to us in the car-hire return queue said they had been in England for a month “and that was enough”.

A week was enough for us aswell, we certainly ate well and found the food imaginative, fresh and well-cooked, especially at the Garden House. We enjoyed not sweltering in the heat, but we didn’t enjoy grey skies and 15 degree daytime temperatures. The constant reminders of 1995 and our villas 4th anniversary did make it an auspicious occasion, it was good to be home.

By web author.