Adventures On An Airbed

And what an adventure it was- here's our route. We left Ferndown at 2pm Sunday, and got home again at 9.30pm Monday night. We had nine stops en route.

Stop 1 - A brief "Tea&Wee" stop just before we left |England to cross the Severn Bridge. Aware of the appalling motorway services by the bridge [they are, I've been] we chose instead to enjoy a more civilised National Trust Cuppa.

Dyrham Park is just beyond Bath, before joining the motorway. We only saw the tea room and the loo - but may go back another time. The tea room is decorated with designs from the house's Delftware collection. This house has been used for many films & TV programmes [including Remains of The Day, and Crimson Field] The free shuttle bus takes you from the car park down the long drive to the house, with lovely views of the grounds, and the beautiful deer. The place was heaving with visitors on a sunny Bank Holiday Weekend. Quickly back on the road, over the bridge- and into the Land of Song & Bilingual Road Signs...
On to Stop 2 Merthyr Tydfil - our Anniversary Dinner was in Frankie And Benny's. I enjoyed my steak. Then we drove on to find an overnight stop. Up the A470, to somewhere south of Rhayader. We'd already filled our coffee mugs with hot drinks at a petrol station. So we pulled up in a layby around 9.45pm. It was hot, and we'd decided teeshirts and pants would be adequate nightwear. Had drink, cleaned teeth, etc and then climbed into back of car. Due to Bob's height and one end of the airbed being unsupported for 6", we had decided to sleep with our feet towards the front, heads under the back window. I had a torch and phone my side, Bob locked the car and hung the keys on a hook beside him.[he had to cancel the 'don't lock yourself' out mechanism first]  We settled to sleep. And then WHEE!WHEE!WHEE! The alarm went off - he hadn't cancel 'internal movement detector'. He had to climb out of the car, get into the driver's seat and do that thing. Back into bed. "Now I need to pee" he said. I giggled whilst he clambered out again, and then returned a minute or two later. Lights off, doors locked, we settled down."NOW we can sleep" I said. WHEE!WHEE!WHEE! It appears that the car has a default setting - if you unlock/relock the doors the monitoring thing resets. 
During all this, I had been monitoring the traffic - A car or large lorry would hurtle pass every two minutes or so, even though it was well past 10pm. We both climbed over the wobbly mattress and got into the front of the car, and drove a further ten miles to a quieter layby which was more secluded and properly 'off-road'. 
Stop 3 We finally fell asleep, waking next morning around 6 - the airbed had leaked a little, and our hips and shoulders were touching the car floor. We dressed, ate a biscuit and shared a milk drink. Bob's two priorities were  "Breakfast, and A Welsh Castle"...