A whole five weeks had passed since our last trip, during which time I had had another birthday and Norwich City had failed to make it to Wembley for the Play Off Final then finally sacking the manager. Not that we are anywhere near good enough currently to even consider another crack at the Premiership.
For my birthday we had a very nice day out to Ely on the train followed by a take away at home with the boys and Ellie.
We had been to Theatre 3 times and cinema once. There had been a lovely lunch with an old friend in Middleton (Teresa) that Karen & Sharon had not seen for over 40 years. There had also been Barry’s birthday that we celebrated with a lovely meal at Donneli’s and I had been with Ian K to a Bowls open morning to be taught the rules and more importantly the etiquette of playing.
This trip to Lincoln had come about through me receiving a free voucher for a free four ball at Golf at selected courses throughout the country for a mystery shop I had undertaken last year. We had settled upon Belton Woods near Grantham as a course to try and then looked for accommodation for 4 couples nearby. Looking on Airbnb we found a very quirky converted church that looked fabulous and fitted our needs in nearby Woodhall Spa and so that was booked as our base for 3 nights.
We left early on the Friday morning as Karen was keen to stop at Springfield outlets in Spalding on the way. When I say early, we were 20 minutes later than planned as Karen as was not ready on time and even then, we still managed to leave all the cheese we had bought for the weekend in the fridge.
Traffic was not great and I may have mentioned once or twice that if we had been on time then we would have been further along the A47 and probably ahead of the tanker that had gone into the ditch and blocked the road in front of us. Instead, we sat 25 minutes waiting for the Police to direct the traffic around the blockage.
Despite this it was with a skip in Karen’s step that we made our way to the M&S outlet. She bought some much needed ‘tops’ whilst I came out with less than exciting socks. After mooching in another couple of shops we went into the adjacent garden centre café for a quick lunch, where the quality and service was low whilst the cost was high.
We then headed to Woodhall Spa and easily found The Old Methodist Church – our base for the weekend. We located the key and let ourselves in. The lobby looked and smelt like a church. As we went through to the main hall, we found ourselves in the converted living area. It was all rather strange but we were not sure it was all in a good way.
The kitchen seemed nicely laid out and clean (although Karen was not happy with all the cutlery and washed it by hand before anyone else arrived). The dining room opposite the kitchen seemed fine. The main bedroom and the downstairs bedroom seemed very acceptable. The two other bedrooms were just about OK but with small double beds. We had arranged randomly before arriving who was allocated to each room. We had this time ended up with one of the ‘meh’ rooms.
One issue we identified quickly was a lack of a proper lounge area in which to hang out in. There was a seating area with a couple of sofas on the mezzanine floor above but it only sat 6 people and not the 8 people that would be here.
After opening many doors, I eventually found the advertised cinema room. The small room that led into in contained the DVD library which must have held a few thousand DVD’s on three walls. The cinema room itself was small but perfectly formed. It was painted black with stars on the ceiling. On its sloping floor there were 2 rows of cinema seats (with wine glass holders) and a leather sofa in front of the 85-inch screen with a Dolby surround sound system. There was even a cinema popcorn machine. It was a very impressive set up.
The interior of the church was decorated by lots of Rock posters and other memorabilia. I determined to find out more details about the owner. It turned out to be an Executive Music and DVD producer who worked with Pink Floyd, Yes, Tangerine Dream, others in the progressive rock world, along with for one album – Donny Osmond.
After a while the others arrived and the church was soon full of excited chatter and laughter as they all unloaded their cars and looked around the church. Then we realised also walking around inside was a lady we didn’t know. It turned out to be a local who thought the church was still a church and as she saw people walking in and out thought she would look inside herself. She turned out not to be a total weirdo and when we explained it was now a converted holiday let, we all had a good laugh. We then showed her around the place as well.
After everyone had settled in, there were many popping of corks as the fizz started to flow freely. We dragged a couple of chairs out of the bedrooms so that we could all sit in the ‘lounge’ area together.
Graham & Jo had offered to cook a Vegetarian Meal for everyone tonight and they started to put the finishing touches to the meal they had prepped at home before leaving. Karen & I being faddy had decided to opt out and we wandered down the High Street already slightly squiffy to get some Fish & Chips (and some extra chips for Graham). Karen also bought some cheese to replace the one left behind at home.
We all ate together in the Dining Room and more wine was consumed. We got through 10 bottles between the 8 of us that evening. A bowler hat was found in a cupboard that I then wore as we ate.
After eating, Sarah & Ian organised the ‘Dinner Party’ game which was a great laugh. I thought I was on a winner being ‘Dua Lipa’ in the first game but Karen guessed that I was her straight away. Jo was the winner of both games.
After clearing away we all eventually made our way up to our respective bedrooms. It was all still very strange and rather eery sleeping in a church.
