Since its inception I’ve been wanting to visit The Poetry Pharmacy. It is, however, over a four hour drive away, in a tiny town in Shropshire, close to the border with Wales. And it hadn’t been long open when Covid hit and everything shut down. Also, I’m really rubbish at organising things like holidays.

Luckily, The Husband has family not too far from Bishop’s Castle, and his sister turned 80 on July 8 for which her kids threw a party, so I was presented with an in.

The do was in Tewksbury, the whole family was to be there, we booked a room in the nearest hotel for two nights. It was a bit corporate for my taste, and breakfast was extortionate, but it was nice to stagger down in the morning and find our grandchildren tucking into waffles.

When we checked out on Sunday morning, we had no plans but we did think we’d meander up the road and stop somewhere interesting. The last time we did this trip we stopped at Stratford, this time, after some muddling, I remembered The Poetry Pharmacy, and where it was, and that that was not too far out of the way. So that’s where we headed.

We had to drop The Husband’s daughter at Birmingham airport anyway and, as luck would have it, that turned out to be on the right side of the ring road. Also, The Husband has an old university friend who lives in the same town, which helped convince him it was a good idea to go there.

I can’t remember the details of the journey, only that it took longer than I’d anticipated, and we arrived only ten or so minutes before The Poetry Pharmacy was due to close! I’m not good at rushing, so all I did was stare at a shelf in a kind of panic. The Husband, meanwhile, asked the woman on the desk if she knew his friend and her address. She googled her. He then asked if there was a good place to eat, and she recommended this place.

We shlepped up the hill towards it, passing our car, which we’d parked at the bottom and, as we got there, The Husband said, ‘I wonder how much it would cost to stay here?’

I find asking the price of things excruciating. If something doesn’t have a price on it I put it back on the shelf/hanger/whatever, no matter how much I want it. And it makes no difference how much I have in my bank account. Maybe if I had millions it would be different, but even if I have plenty to spare I can’t bring myself to ask. This is probably something to do with the fact I have to stop and visualise how I’ll use whatever it is: where it will go in the house; what I’ll wear it with and to where; how I will experience it; that kind of thing. This has worked in my favour many times, I’ve got several really nice pieces from antiques fairs and flea markets for knock-down prices because my staring into space at the mention of the price has freaked out the stall holder. But I still shy away from asking. So I stayed outside admiring the flowerpots while The Husband went in to ask.

Five minutes later he came out beaming, ‘We can have the Master bedroom for a hundred and ten quid, it’s usually a hundred and forty!’ I went in.

Would you like dinner tonight? asked the young woman behind the counter. ‘No,’ answered The Husband, to my surprise; I mean, his original reason for coming was food. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but this is the only place in town that does food on a Sunday.’ I don’t think he heard, or quite understood. Anyway, we got our luggage from the car and took it up to our room. Whoa!

TH wanted to go in search of his old friend. I just wanted to luxuriate on the enormous couch and finish Spelling Bee. It was about half-past three. Off he went.

He came back about an hour later, with stories. I will share them in a later post as this one is turning into a bit of an epic, and I’m told people get bored and don’t like to read too much at a time. But here’s a photo to whet your appetite.