Yesterday, we went on holiday! It was a surprise, so we had no idea where we were going – in fact, we didn’t even know we were going out that day. In the morning, we all got in the car and took William to school, and then Mummy started driving into the middle of nowhere. Seeing her pack some swimsuits into a bag earlier that day, however, Tilly and I thought that maybe we were off to the beach. Once we’d crossed the River Thames and the River Medway, we were wondering how on earth we were going to get to the seaside, since Mummy said it would be about an hour and twenty minutes. When finally we parked and got out, we were on the bay of the beautiful River Medway. Little did we know that they had beaches there! But before we got into Whitsable where there was the sea, we wandered down the cobblestone and found Rochester Castle.
It was just like when we went to Dover Castle! There were loads of passageways and spiral staircases, and little underground places and so-and-so. There was one spiral staircase with 200 uneven, stone stairs, the sign said; and we climbed up right to the very top without stopping for a break at all! (Of course, we stopped at the end panting and enchanting each other on tales of when they thought the case would stop and it didn’t.)
ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL
The pebbles, back on the beach, hurt our feet so we slipped on our crocs and went with them. In about five or ten minutes, our sun cream had seeped in and we were able to go into the stretch of peninsular sea. Luckily for us, the sea had had ages to warm up over summer, and it was much hotter than we had expected. So we waded right into the middle of the reasonably warm water, where then we splashed round with it up to our waist. Mummy, from above at the beach houses, was continuously making breaststroke arm movements, indicating for us to swim, but no matter how much we tried, we couldn’t find the confidence to go under! I remembered the time when I was in the sea at Devon, and I ducked my head under – I had about ten minutes of brain freeze after that, so I didn’t want to replay the experience! But all the same, it was fun splashing round and skimming pebbles. We found loads of clams and crabs, and huge big orange ones, too!
Finally, after three hours, Mummy stood up waving her arms frantically. We raced each other to the shore, me winning, with huge gushes of water and foam and bubbles at our knees. When we got back to Mummy, she was in deep conversation with a lady from Austria. It was a bit strange, but the lady, Heidi, seemed very nice all-in-all! On our walk back to a fish-and-chip shop we couldn’t find, with Heidi, we kept seeing loads of huge crabs or tidal islands! (I think that the ginormous orange, and exploded, crab we found was probably a lobster!) When we got in the car and found a really brilliant fish shop, we ate a large chips, and a large cod and chips! We were that hungry – ’twas already ten to eight! When we were back in the car, we got a phone call from the hotel saying, “Hello, are you on your way to the hostel?” We had no idea what type of hotel it was – a youth hostel, a Premier Inn, a Travelodge, or what! When we got the call, we at once knew that it must be a youth hostel! When we got there, turns out, it was!
Unfortunately, however, there was a big noisy group of school teenagers on a trip to the hostel. And, you guessed it, they were on our floor, and it was just us and ten or so of them! They kept us up all night, shouting and laughing and slamming doors and stomping in the corridor and playing awful Katie Perry music. It was like being in a Nightmare Hostel. Regardless of the sign on the door, which said quiet between 11pm and 7am, they were shouting until midnight. Mummy got up three times to go and tell them to shut up. They had nothing for respect.
