England. Day 7. Castle On the Hill.
And now for the next part of our trip!
The next leg of our vacation is at the Four Seasons Hampshire. The hotel is on Dogmersfield Estate. If you’ve ever seen Downton Abbey, it’s basically like that. The actual hotel is a restored 18th century manor house, but the grounds are pretty huge. Saying its gorgeous would be an understatement. I don’t think my descriptions would do it justice. You’ll have to just look at the photos, but even those won’t do it justice.
As a reminder, Mary Helen suggested the Four Seasons Hampshire when we were initially trying to figure out what to do, and as soon as I looked at the pictures on the website I said we had to go there. The hotel of my dreams and enough to build a whole trip around.
We checked in for our three night stay and started heading to our room. As we were unloading, we saw two moths that Tzvi and the Bellman killed. It was pretty disgusting. But then it got worse. I think after the bellman left we killed another 2. I thought maybe when they were cleaning they left the window open.
Anyway, we left for our dinner that was about a 5 minute drive from the hotel at The Exchequer, a casual English pub. It was a real country pub. They had games, so we played Jenga and cards. Dinner was delicious. We had bread, corn ribs, Korean cauliflower and pea soup. I had a veggie burger and Tzvi had fish and chips. Hallie got a tomato soup she loved. For dessert we had sticky toffee pudding and a rhubarb crumble. The only issue was that it took SO long. I guess people just don’t care to move here. Certainly no hustle and bustle here. We ordered a cab back, but it also took like 15 minutes to come.
Finally, we got back to the room, changed the girls for bed, and that’s when we started to see more bugs. I think we saw 3 or 4 more moths. While all of this is happening, we were also dealing with getting the girls to sleep, which was a whole new issue since they now had to share a bed. Hallie was trying to go to sleep but Madeleine wouldn’t stop hugging her, which Hallie didn’t want. It was a mess.
(Tzvi hunting moths with his shoe)
I went to the front desk just to let them know what was happening with the bugs. I came back to the room and THEN there was another bug. So then I went back to the front desk just to say what do I do. The woman was very apologetic but we couldn’t move rooms because there were no other connecting rooms available, and anyway it was like 11:30 at night and Madeleine had finally gone to sleep so were we really going to wake her up. They sent a housekeeping man with me with a light to check everything. He didn’t find anything. It was just so gross and eerie and unpleasant. Between the moths and the girls not going to sleep, it was a very tense first night.
Wednesday
We woke up around nine, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast. Thankfully, no more moth sightings in the room. Breakfast here is a buffet but also has a full menu, and it’s honestly overwhelming in the best way. They have everything — pastries, muffins, smoked salmon, waffles, pancakes, salads, homemade jams, even vegan sausage. The girls were thrilled to see Nutella. Madeleine was also excited to find pickles (well, gherkins, but same thing to her).
After breakfast, we headed out because Tzvi had an 11 a.m. clay pigeon shooting lesson. We all wore the giant ear protectors and watched him at the start. He actually hit his first shot, which was exciting, then I left with the kids and Shir to explore. [Tzvi: It was fun. We moved around the field to five different positions, each with a launcher that launched the disks in a different way. There was even one that rolled the disk across the field like a bunny. My instructor, Sam, was probably in his late 20s and said he had lived his whole life in a nearby village. He and his grandfather run the shooting at the hotel, so it’s a family business. After Steph left, Sam said, “you must have your hands full with three girls.” Shir is 21. Do I really look that old?]
We walked around the hotel grounds and found two playgrounds — one smaller for little kids, one bigger — and eventually discovered the kids’ club. It was adorable and is basically in this cute little cottage. I left Shir and Madeleine there to paint while I ran with Hallie back to the room to drop off some things.
By noon, it was time for archery. Hallie and I did the lesson together, and it was both fun and slightly painful. We wore armbands, but the bowstring still managed to leave a few marks. The instructor was great, and Hallie really loved it — I think she felt very Katniss Everdeen.
We walked back through the fields. Everything is so beautiful and we just wanted to take photos everywhere. Looking back, maybe we should’ve just taken a mental picture.
Afterward, we rejoined Shir and Madeleine, and then stopped at reception. They’d been checking in via the app about the whole bug fiasco, so I met with the manager I’d been speaking to. His name was Ian, he was super tall, and he said he went to college in Hawaii where he played volleyball. He was kind and apologetic. I told him we’ve been ok, but the whole moth situation had been a little traumatizing. He was very nice about it.
At 1:30, we went to afternoon tea in the Drawing Room. It wasn’t as artistic as the Rosewood’s tea, but still beautiful and absolutely delicious. They’d even customized everything to be pescatarian and vegetarian, swapping out the pastries with gelatin for non-gelatin pastries. The scones were perfection — clotted cream, jam, lemon curd — and the teas were amazing. I tried a 20th anniversary blend and then a Four Seasons exclusive “digestion” tea, which is supposed to help with digestion. It hasn’t yet, but I’m hopeful. The girls devoured pastries, and it was just a really nice experience. The room was so quiet, but the girls were super well behaved. Even I was impressed. They were mostly entertained by the gold napkin rings. At one point Madeleine asked for a new napkin, but the waiter saw through it and ended up brining her a half dozen more napkin rings instead, which made her very happy. As we were leaving, Ian stopped me again and said they were comping the entire tea “for our troubles.” That was nearly $500 off the bill. So that was very nice of him.
We then spent the afternoon at the pool. There are two indoor pools. One is an adults’ pool, with lap lanes, but you can also swim outside by going through a little door and then there’s like a hot tub (except it’s not hotter than the rest of the pool) with jets and water features. There’s also a kids’ pool and splash zone with a slide. It’s a really fantastic kids pool – tons of water features and just really nice. Also, both the water and the pool building are really warm, so it was really comfortable to just get in and out of the water. We started at the kids pool, then moved over when family time opened for the big pool at 4pm. The girls loved both. Just a really lovely afternoon at the pool.
By 5:45 we were back in the room, showered, dressed, and then went downstairs for dinner at Wild Carrot — the same restaurant as breakfast.
Dinner here, like the night before, took forever. I keep telling myself it’s just that we’re living life more slowly out in the country, but when you see three families come and go while you’re still waiting for appetizers, you start to wonder if it’s just us. Still, the food was very good: I had a chilled pea soup that was excellent, and the salmon was decent. Tzvi had an onion tart, and a blackened salmon with rice and yogurt sauce that he said was delicious.
Once the mains were done Tzvi took the girls outside to run around in the field while we waited for desserts. The desserts were fantastic, and at both tea and dinner they brought out a little candle for Tzvi’s upcoming birthday, which was sweet. I think they could sense we were annoyed with the length of time so the head chef came over to ask how everything was. Then the pastry chef came out to say hello. Oh, we also spotted an Israeli family at dinner. We didn’t speak to them, but they really are everywhere.
After dinner came the nightly bedtime battle. Madeleine insists on hugging Hallie to fall asleep. Hallie wants peace. Cue 60 minutes of bickering, all the while Tzvi is on a work call. If Hallie would just tolerate five minutes of cuddling, Madeleine would be out like a light — but of course, it’s “not fair” to ask her. And she’s right, but still, it would save us all a lot of misery.
On the bug front: no more moths! At one point, Tzvi thought he killed a mosquito, but it turned out to just be a piece of fuzz. Tzvi is very good at killing fuzz. There are bugs around the property — you’ll see them in hallways or outside — but that’s just life in the country. The moth episode was traumatizing, but at least that seems to be behind us.