We will not be going to Zermatt this year. Nor will we travel to Deauville, Paris, London, or even Buffalo. No. We will summer in Pleasantville, that picturesque and quaintly post-Industrial-era hotspot. And we shall winter there as well. And spring and autumn there, too.
Yesterday, I ran through the exercise of seeing where I would pass my measly ten vacation days.
My Visa bill is outrageous and I'm still paying for the furnace and central a/c that got replaced in Ma Maisonette three years ago.
I also know I'm about to add to my burden by buying a new car. I know, I know, I don't have to buy a new new car, but there is some stubborn mental block in my head that won't let me buy a used car. I wish it were otherwise.
So here's yet another aspect of the circle game - I buy a new car and then I can't afford to go anywhere.
These days, a hotel room seems to go for a flat hundred bucks. You can fiddle, cajole, plead, play all kinds of games on Expedia, but in the long run, it always turns out to be a hundred smackers. And I have to have someone come in to watch the cats, which turns out to range anywhere from $20 - $40 per day.
So vacationing will be done largely at home this year. It makes me slightly queasy to think of a year trapped in Jersey.
I had hoped that I would get to go to a trade show in London in the spring. I knew exactly what I would do if the siren song of Paris didn't get to me first.
I have always wanted to see Harrogate in Yorkshire. A friend of mine at work had a calendar of garden in Harrogate, in full bloom, and it was breathtakingly lovely. It's also in the general vicinity of Bronte country. And I chanced upon a lovely, quaint inn in a village called Masham. I priced train tickets from London to York.
And more than that, I wanted to stay at the Dean Court Hotel in York.
In 1974, I was turned away from the hotel because I was young, alone, and wearing jeans. It wasn't cheap, but I was willing to fork over the money because I was alone and feeling addled and wanted nothing more than to spend a night in cleanliness and a bit of luxury. Instead, I was turned away.
I ended up spending the night at a B&B in a row of condemned buildings. There were stuffed birds in bell jars everywhere I turned and when I went up the stairs, doors opened a crack then slammed behind me.
There will be no Dean Court Hotel this year. I am planning on my annual pilgrimage to Richmond in the spring and that should pretty effectively wipe out any float I manage to scrape together between now and then. But at least I'll get to drive there and back in a shiny new car.
