After some trepidation leaving Della crying before going to school, Di and I took the Rolls Royce for a journey to Bournemouth for the Liberal Democrat Party Conference and stayed at the five star at The Royal Bath Hotel but unfortunately the room was somewhat noisy.
Having sorted out my conference registration I joined Diana for a swim in the swimming pool and hot tub walking before round much of Bournemouth and then settling for a traditional Chinese meal at the Mandarin restaurant
We had planned for some time to go to Bournemouth for the Liberal Democrat Party Conference and today was the day. Unfortunately, Della was fretting overnight about the start of her second week at school and this kept Diana awake. The performance continued this morning and Di had to leave her weeping and wailing at the bus stop which she found very upsetting. We talked through the problem afterwards and Di was all for calling off our trip; but I persuaded her that Della would be all right now that she had started back at school and so we agreed to leave as planned. We still had the morning at home for Diana to do some housework and shopping and for me to try to get as much paperwork out of the way as possible.
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I then took Daniel, Angela and Di out to lunch at the Little Chef and we chatted about our arrangements and ended up ready to leave in a more relaxed frame of mind. I decided that we would be taking the Rolls Royce as the destination hotels had secure parking and it was an ideal chance to try it out on a long journey after the service. It ran very well, with no trouble at all. The air conditioning (on which I had spent a deal of money) was adequate and the battery started the engine with no trouble at stops on the journey. After spending over £3000 on the car for the second year running, it was just as well! We stopped on the M3 after circling London on the M25 Motorway and had a nice afternoon snack to get us even more relaxed. The only problem on the Rolls was the cigar lighter sockets not working so that I could not plug in our portable cellular telephone!
We arrived in Bournemouth at 5.00pm on another very warm and sunny day and found our reservation at The Royal Bath Hotel in order and the arrangements for looking after our car satisfactory. The only problem with the hotel was the position of our room which was on the front of the building overlooking a roundabout and night club which were both very noisy on a hot evening with the window open. This was disappointing for a five-star hotel. I left Diana to unpack and sort out our room whilst I walked to the conference centre and got my registration sorted out.
I walked through the linear town-centre park and met a few familiar colleagues on the way but came back to the hotel as soon as possible to join Diana for a swim in the swimming pool and hot tub before dinner. She also telephoned home to find that Della had no trouble at school and that it was Debbie that was missing her doing her hair etc! We then decided to walk out for our meal and, after walking round much of Bournemouth, settled for a traditional Chinese meal at the Mandarin restaurant. For once, Di agreed to have some Chinese food with me and thoroughly enjoyed the experience as we shared a special dinner for two. Quite late to bed but as the noise did not finish until midnight, we were in no hurry.