Dot related to me her nightly experience which I really must record on my blog as it is so typical of hostel life as I know it….
Our final night in the dorm was shared with the two young girls from the previous night, who we had chatted to and discovered were from the Basque region of Spain, plus a new couple who occupied the bunk below Dot. They came in at 1.58am. I know this because I looked at my mobile when they came in. Apparently they dumped their backpacks against the wall where Dot had plugged in her tablet for charging. In the early hours she went looking in the dark for her tablet and untangled the wiring from their backpack then went off to the loo to find it occupied. She waited perched on the laundry pile in the hallway in her nightie for the loo to become vacant in a somewhat sleepy state. Then a nocturnal young man came by and asked her if she was ok and “are you drunk”… she looked up and said “I’m fine, just waiting to use the the toilet”. Just after he left, she burst out laughing, and thought what the heck am I doing in this situation? Sorry no pics of this…. wish I had!
We left the hostel about 8.30 to catch our Volobus to the airport know that we had an uphill haul with our wheelies. All was fine and we arrived at the airport in good time 2 and a half hours was the requested time by BA for our flight home. Of course the flight was delayed by about half an hour, apparently because there was a missing passenger and their luggage had to be removed from the plane.
We finally took off and were comfortable to be flying over
vast areas of parched French countryside drinking our complimentary G&Ts followed by quite a substantial chicken salad wrap. Completely happy with our BA flight we landed in good time to catch our Airline bus back to Oxford.
We did however have to wait a good 20 minutes for the bus back to Charlbury. However in the meantime we were well entertained by an elderly couple who had just arrived with us on the Airline bus and were also heading to Charlbury. I was reminded of Alf Garnet in the tv series, “Til Death us do part”. He was still wearing his sandles and long shorts and white smart casual shirt. She had well weathered sun bronzed skin and oversized sunglasses. He was being somewhat over-dominant and telling her in an irritable manner where to stand and where they would be getting the bus from and she, eyes raised to the sky, was saying to me “he thinks I can’t think for myself!” We could see that many decades together had bonded them yet it was hard to understand how they could bear to spend a moment longer in eachother’s company.
The bus finally dropped us off at Nine Acres, not at The Bell where we really wanted to be to save any more unnecessary traveling to our final destination of Church Lane. I’m not sure why but I think it was because it was a Chipping Norton bus and not a Witney one. Anyway, the final piece to our final day was when we were walking back to Church Lane and the wheel fell off Dot’s carefully Duck taped wheelie! I tried piggie-backing her wheelie on mine but that didn’t work so she just dragged it home ‘one wheel on my wagon fashion’ . (Sorry no pics here either!) We dumped all wheelies and fled to the Bull for dinner before bed! A final Charlbury sunset from Church Lane….