It was the day to pick up the car in the afternoon, which meant that I couldn’t venture too far in the morning. There was some frantic tossing of the coin to choose from a ride to Henley-on-Thames and Oxford some 100 miles away to Baddesley Clinton and Kenilworth next door. After a sumptuous breakfast, the decision was made and Kenilworth won.

Kenilworth is just 6 miles from the hotel, but I wanted to save my energy for traipsing around the castle, so a 10-minute taxi ride it was. I’m still marvelling at how short the distances are, and how little time it takes to drive from one place to another.

The Kenilworth castle has hundreds of years of history associated with it, some wars, some sieges, some romance. It was first built in the early 12th century as a single structure, then was expanded by successive rulers into a palace fortress surrounded by a ‘dammed’ lake and finally a renaissance palace before it was destroyed, and now is preserved as a heritage structure.

The self-guided tour is wonderful; the history and architecture dished out in bite-sized doses, as you walk around the various points of interest. There was a school trip in progress while I was there. It was almost as much fun to watch them learn about the castle from the teacher who was making it come alive with stories about kings and battles and lots of playacting.

A significant part of the tour is dedicated to the story of how Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, wooed Queen Elizabeth I, by buiding new sections to the castle and a beautiful garden for her. There’s an exhibition on this piece of history in the gatehouse. And I have to go back and watch the movie Elizabeth by Shekhar Kapur.

The stables now house a cafe, where I had my lunch of cheese and chutney sandwich and a pot of tea with a fudgy brownie. Set off by bus to Leamington, picked up a very nice car with satellite navigation, and got back to the hotel to spend the evening planning out the route for today.

Jamie and Denise had promised us a Scottish dinner of haggis (veggie for me), but Tammy put her foot down and we ended up at a fabulous Italian restaurant instead. The menu sounded like Italian-English fusion, and I thoroughly enjoyed my beetroot risotto with grilled goat cheese tart and caramelised onions. Souvik had chicken with butternut squash. The food was delicious, but the company was super, and we had a madly entertaining evening.

*Now there’s a pressure to do this daily, and Souvik has started to protest!