The Bed and Breakfast Experience

I was very excited to book my first Bed and Breakfast experience here in England. Little did I know that the lovely charm of a B & B is most delicately balanced by the personality of the proprietor who was crazier than a box of frogs. I think I should have known when the website had floating clouds surrounding each picture of various rooms... but hey! They were nice on the phone, flexible and the price was right.

When we arrived, the woman showed us to our room, and informed us that breakfast would be served between 8:00AM and 8:30AM... that was the first dose of madness, who wakes up that early on a holiday? Even a working research holiday, the library and archives didn't open until 10AM. Here I have chosen to highlights some of my favorite features in the decor of the room.

We were informed that this is called the 'Princess Toilet', and we had it all to ourselves. Apparently the shiny silver toilet seat was a gift, but she found the cowboy hat to match. This is a real throne, with silver glitter captured for all eternity in a plastic toilet seat. Part of the reason that this made me laugh so frequently is because it reminds me of my mom. That's right, the glitter queen herself. My mom doens't actually love glitter as much as we love to tease her about it, but she too, would find it ridiculous, gaudy, yet... strangely alluring... all the things a toilet seat should never be (in my humble opinion).

Our room was en suite, so in along with the magic only sparkly toilets can inspire we had a strange shower closet thing. It was literally a closet made into a shower stall; space saving and functional... but odd. I like my shower stalls to be more than 2 feet from where I sleep.

I don't think that this photo does this picture justice. Not only was our room decorated with many fine bird ornaments and paintings, but featured the above painting... some sort of twisted child-whore-bride precious moments combination. I am not sure why the bride's dress is so short, or why the couple's age collectively does not hit double digits, but I do know I find it mildly horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I am sure that it was a charity shop bargain of the century.

In the end, the bed was comfortable and the room close to town centre, so all is well. Plus it was amusing to hear the proprietor talk to her parrot every day, especially when the parrot ignored her and remained silent. Another highlight was hearing the forced cheerful 'HELLO DARLINGS!!' as a good morning greeting. Though I think my favorite bit was when I went to order breakfast off a menu and thought to myself, 'Eggs Benedict sounds good' so I ordered that, then she looked at my quizzically as if me actually using the menu vexed her slightly. I quickly changed to a full English breakfast without any of the meat and she quickly morphed into happy-hello-darling woman again.

Bed and Breakfasts... not to be missed.