Oh dear Tesco!

Jan is furious more than slightly annoyed!  We took advantage of the rental car and did a large shop at Tesco late yesterday.  It was dark before we had made the numerous trips between the car and Waiouru to get all the purchases aboard.  This morning Jan decided to do another large shop at Tesco and use the £5 discount voucher she has had for a fortnight.  It states “£5 off your next shop if you spend £40 or more”.  So we walked all the aisles and filled a large trolley.  However she received a shock when the lady at the checkout counter advised her the voucher wasn’t valid until tomorrow!  According to the teller a number of people have been similarly caught!  Needless to say Jan wasn’t impressed.  She has spent over £260 at Tesco buying both food and clothing in the last couple of days and was looking forward to the discount.

My assessment is this is a Tesco marketing ploy.  The policy of delaying the activation by two weeks probably means many shoppers will have forgotten they had the voucher or won’t be able to find it.  But they will still remember Tesco in a positive light for receiving one.  After purchasing so much I’ve no doubt our email account will now be bombarded with Tesco marketing junk!

The next stop was Braunston.  I wanted to go to the chandlery at the bottom lock and buy a stainless steel cupboard hook.  The reason for this will hopefully be more apparent tomorrow.  We then went back up the hill to the butcher and bought another dozen of his delicious sausages.

It seemed a waste to have hired the car and not use it.  My suggestion was to go for a drive and look at some countryside not too far from Rugby but away from any canals.  In the end we decided to head towards the Welsh border.  I programmed the gps to take us to Ross on Wye on the basis that it was somewhere west and sounded interesting.

Felicity (the gps) has been trained to take us via the quickest route.  That usually means boring motorways.  Today was no different except 30 minutes into the journey we were diverted because of a closure on the M42.  Suddenly there was a large volume of traffic on the lesser roads.  Things were getting congested.  The problem with Felicity is she will only show you a small portion of the planned route and you don’t really know where you are!  We must by a cheap road atlas to see the “big picture”.  Particularly as we don’t know the UK all that well.  Somewhere along the way I missed a turn and we found ourselves going down a very narrow country lane following half the tractors based in the Welsh borders!

Time was ticking by and stomachs changed from growl to roar!  Why can’t you find a pub when you need one?

We played “ the let’s pretend were not hungry” game and then one will appear.  And so it happened!  Lunch at the Red Lion.  Probably one of dozens of Red Lion pubs in the UK.

The meal was slightly expensive but tasted very nice.  Jan even got to pat Max the pub dog who sat beside her and watched every mouthful!  This time I had the Sunday roast beef In a bun whilst Jan had the roast pork In a bun both with roast potatoes and gravy.

On arriving at Ross on Wye I did my usual thing and headed for the high ground to get an overview of the land.

My guess it this is the River Wye.  It was a misty scene but the walkers ramblers were out and the crew of a rowing skiff were practicing on the river.  At the top of the hill was what appeared to be the remains of a medieval tower and town or castle walls.

It was very interesting… until I read the plaque which informed me they were mock!  Only built in 1833 as part of a local road realignment!  Well I can say we’ve been to Ross on Wye, but I can’t think of a reason to go back!

Rather than risk Felicity taking us back through all the diverted traffic I inserted in intermediate destination into our return route.  “Joneses Luck!”  The M5 also had a congestion problem.  All three lanes of traffic going in our direction came to a complete stop.

The minutes passed and all the locals appeared to passively accept the situation.  Guess they must be used to these occurrences!  I was think of popping over to Paul and Elaine in their motorhome and asking if they could put the kettle on, however Jan said they would probably be asleep in the bed!

Eventually a traffic control vehicle and police car passed us on the shoulder.  Two minutes later all the traffic started to move.  We passed the traffic control vehicle moored in front of what appeared to be a disabled foreign vehicle (Volvo).  No sign of the Volvo being in a accident and no other vehicles appeared to be involved in the stoppage.  How could one vehicle completely stop three lanes of traffic?  The only reason I could think of was the police had temporary stopped all the traffic in front of us to apprehend the occupants of the Volvo!  But if this was the case it took them thirty minutes!