Second Visit to Exeter September 2023

During 2023 a couple of events involving my daughter necessitated another trip to visit her in Exeter. She and her partner had purchased a property, and had produced a baby, my granddaughter, Eliza Susie. We were eager to visit them to catch up, and booked a pitch on Exeter racecourse again https://tinyurl.com/bdzfheat, as we’d been satisfied with our stop there a year earlier. Given the trip is 345 miles and five and a half hours in length a stop over  is called for. We selected the Hartley Arms in Wheaton Aston, as it is very near to being the half way mark of the journey.

The Hartley Arms https://thehartley.co.uk is situated next to Bridge 19 on the Shropshire Union Canal and welcomes both barges, which park up on the canal bank next to the pub, and motorhomes, which can park to the rear of the car park. It provides a good selection of food and drink, and has been recently taken over,

the atmosphere and the level of service being much improved on that from the previous year.

We parked up, in a spot, not very far from where we had parked the previous year, and as we were not on a campsite I only had the gas to turn on, there being no electric hook up. I then took Finn for a much needed walk down by the canal, before entering the pub to notify them of our arrival. We were enthusiastically welcomed, with Finn being made a fuss off, and we found that we could eat earlier than the pre-arranged time. We then returned to the motorhome to feed Finn before returning to the pub for our own evening meal. The food and service was a big improvement on the previous year, and we enjoyed a meal with a large group of bargers on the next table. I opted for the meatballs from the menu. We then took an early night and returned to the motorhome, where the first of our disasters took place.

I was opening a bottle of cider with a bottle opener when either my excessive strength or the weakness of the bottle resulted in the top coming off, along with a lot of the glass bottle top, with a shard of glass cutting through my finger, and other shards of glass flying everywhere. Being on blood thinners I then concentrated on covering the wound to prevent blood staining the upholstery and carpets, whilst Sue was concentrating on clearing up the glass to prevent Finn cutting himself. Using the light in her IPhone Sue inspected the floor to make sure that she had not missed anything, and I double checked, and we both agreed that there was no hazard left. A good proportion of our first night had been wasted. We then settled down to watch TV and have an early night.

When Sue got up the next morning she noticed, on the floor, the both of us had checked, a large shard of glass that wasn’t there the previous evening. A mystery we never solved! We decided a breakfast was not needed, switched off the gas, and prepared the motorhome for the rest of the journey, and set off. We had noticed, when we had arrived the previous evening, a local garage selling fuel, and as we did not want to pay the extortionate motorway prices we headed to this garage to fill up. We then joined the motorway and stopped at a service station to use their toilets and to buy food and drink for the rest of the journey.

After a non-eventful journey we passed Exeter and travelled up the A38 to the racecourse entrance and headed for reception to register for our pitch. We were given a map of the site, and told to select a pitch with white markers and reverse in. We selected pitch 12 and I ran to the reception to tell them our number, and was given the code for the gate. It only took minutes to connect the electricity and turn on the gas, and we were ready. This was when we came across the second of our problems on this trip. We had prebooked an evening meal at Bill’s in the centre of Exeter, and I looked at the bus timetables online to find out  which bus we needed to catch, and wherefrom. There was a bus stop near to the site, on the other side of the A38, and a bus that would have got us to Exeter bus station in time for our meal. What there wasn’t was a bus to return us to the site, as the last bus was at 7.30pm.

We then decided that we would need to use a taxi, and our problems began. I rang the first taxi firm on the list online and asked what the price would be for two adults and a dog, as we were concerned that the price would be excessive given the distance to Exeter town centre. The price was irrelevant as the firm would not take a dog in it’s taxis. This got me thinking whether there was a firm that would take a dog. Phone call after phone call revealed that Exeter was not dog friendly in that respect. It may have had something to do with the recent negative press regarding American Pit Bully dogs attacking people. I spent most our first afternoon in Exeter ringing around taxi firms to no avail. Luckily, my daughter stepped up to the mark, even though we hadn’t planned to trouble her on our first day, and she agreed to give us a lift back to the site from Bill’s.

Afternoon was turning into evening by the time we had finalised our plans for the evening, and the bus was due soon. We then marched post haste out of the site and through the underpass of the A38, catching the bus with minutes to spare. The bus route into the centre of Exeter was very convoluted and the journey took slightly longer than anticipated, and we arrived at the bus station, again, with minutes to spare. We then used the mobile phone to find our bearings, to walk in the correct direction to Bill’s https://bills-website.co.uk/restaurants/exeter/. We were welcomed in, and shown to a table next to the door, with Finn being fussed over and given water and a treat.

The meal was wonderful, with me, again, opting for the meatballs option, and we splashed out on espresso martinis to round the meal off. We messaged my daughter, and we’re soon on our way back to the site, not before my stomach complained, and necessitated a swift visit to the toilet back in the restaurant.

Once back in the motorhome we encountered another mishap. Sue, recalling the events of the previous evening, volunteered to remove the top from a bottle of cider, in an attempt to prevent me showering the motorhome with glass again. Unfortunately her attempt resulted in exactly the same outcome, and we were back searching for glass again, and I was forced to leave the motorhome with the bottle to pour the contents away in case there were glass fragments in the drink. We were down to two bottles left, and I gingerly tried to remove the top of one of them, this time successfully! We then settled down to what was left of the night. Being very annoyed by the bottle incidents I sat down and wrote a complaint letter to Weston Cider before I went to bed.

Next morning I took pictures of the topless bottle, a large shard of glass, and the wound on my finger to send to Weston Cider to strengthen my complaint. Luckily, we still had the one bottle left, as they asked for that to be returned to them for testing, and it also gave them details of the batch the bottles had come from. I returned the bottle first thing on our return from our break hoping to receive some compensation for our troubles (in the end a case of twelve bottles was received). After dealing with that issue we ensured that we were up and ready for my daughter to pick us up to introduce us to Eliza Susie, and take us back to her house. When she arrived Eliza was sound asleep in her car seat on the rear seat, but soon woke up as the cold air rushed into the car through the opened door. She looked wonderful.

I squeezed into the front seat with Finn between my legs whilst Sue got in the back with the baby, and we were soon at my daughter’s house in the middle of Exeter. After a tour of the house, and viewing the gardens we were treated to a salad/buffet lunch. We spent most of the day there and had a good chat, and were taken back to the motorhome in late afternoon.

Then thoughts turned to our evening meal, and we decided to walk to the BrightSide Diner https://brightside.co.uk/locations/, opposite the bus stop that we had used the previous evening. The diner was a road stop on the side of the busy A38, and it’s décor was clearly influenced by American tastes. My option from the menu was the Chicken Katsu Curry, which unfortunately they had run out of, and under pressure to make a quick alternative order I went for Spaghetti and Meatballs (the third meatball dish in three days!). It was in this diner that the major event that ruined our trip happened. Ever since my stroke a number of years earlier I have suffered from epilepsy, but all of my seizures have occurred at home. As my meal was being brought to me I could feel a seizure coming on, and I warned Sue what was about to happen. As I was sat down there was nothing I needed to do other than concentrate on my breathing to reduce the impact of the seizure. I fought the impulses trying to make my limbs flail about, so visibly the full effect of the tonic clonic seizure was minimised, but the effect on my vision was drastic, and I was unable to see what was in front of me.

After a minute or two the seizure ceased and I was able to eat my meal, and we sat there to ensure that I was OK to return to the motorhome. We finished our drinks and requested our bill and set off back. It was a shock, and disappointing, as I had not had a seizure for a while. I was also anxious as I did not have my supply of Diazepam with me. We took a slow walk back to the motorhome and settled down for an early night, when I suffered another seizure just I got into bed. My lack of Diazepam meant that I could not control the situation, but after a while things eased off on their own and I drifted off to sleep. The next morning as I washed I experienced a pre-seizure experience, and it was after this that I decided that our trip should come to an end.

I rang my daughter to ask her to cancel the lunch that she had booked for us all at a popular seafood restaurant in Exeter, and to explain to her why we were cutting our break short. At the same time Sue had spoken to the site’s management to tell them that we were leaving our pitch earlier than planned. We then concentrated on making the motorhome road ready, disconnecting the electricity and turning the gas off. I undertook the glamerous job of emptying the toilet and opened the grey water tap, to allow that to run off. We then began our long trip home, all in one day. We arrived home at about 6.00pm in the evening.

On the last evening, on the walk to the BrightSide Diner Finn had eaten something ‘dead’ that he found on the path, and was unwell when we got back. His illness lasted a day or two.

Our worse trip to date, by far.