La in the car

La was in Respite Care on Saturday and Sunday, Monday was a bank holiday - Dad off work, La's day centre closed but forget the vile weather forecast, a day out it had to be.
 At home, La nags pretty incessantly for 'Car, car' so car it was. La's Dad proposed that old standby, a trip to the seaside but with heavy showers, low temperatures and blustery winds on the cards, I came up with the idea of going to the town of Battle for a dose of 1066 and all that. La's Dad agreed it was a good idea. We had driven through a few times on our way back from Hastings and berated the fact that we had not allowed any time to stop.
  Battle met a few necessary criteria for a successful day out for La:

• A bit of a drive, not all on big roads
• Plenty fo eating options, not all fish 'n' chips
• Stuff to see, though not an overwhelming amount which would mean La zones out and we became frustrated

So three of us bundled into the car with various necessities of the day - which for us meant apples, La's music, baby wipes, spare pads and our blue disabled badge. La always travels with one or more of her cherished 'sniffy' pillows, a magazine and as many plastic bags as she can smuggle on her person into the back seat.

  Once en route, La invariable changed the whinge from 'car' to anything else she can think of, notably home, bed, bus, Anna, Becky, etc.

   In the end, she gave up, distracted by the hordes of motorbikes seemed to be heading towards a day out in Hastings - La just loves exactly the thing that annoys the hell out of us,  their noise.

  About 20 miles before we arrived, suddenly our nostrils were assaulted by a stench that was not going away. Travelling with an incontinent adult has its moments, however prepared you are. We were lucky and found a service station with a disabled loo... to find that after all that we did not need it as a discreet and casual check of an indignant La as she was persuaded to step out of the car, proved it was all just a very bad case of extreme wind. This discovery made La smile quite smugly at her relieved parents but as La's Dad said as we resumed our journey, 'it's only a matter of time.'

  I won't trouble you with the delights of Battle, I'm no expert; La permitted a mere cursory glimpse of its historic delights as she galumphed up and down the main street and into the various eateries. (William the Conqueror's magnificent Abbey is for another day, sadly.) La's main concern, as ever, was lunch and we did venture into a couple of delis, only to be put off by the throngs of tourists fighting for shelter from the cold and the few last tables and sandwiches.

  Our eventual experience of lunch at The Pilgrim's Rest has, I have noticed, been oh so accurately reviewed by previous visitors. Let's just say it was Fawlty-esque with enthusiastic but hilariously incompetent service. Which was a shame in a way because the food was fine, when it finally arrived and the building and front garden total stunners.

  Walking back up the main street, the inevitable happened, of course and La urgently announced 'Pooh!', by which time, of course, it was too late. La's Dad had noticed signs to a disabled toilet in our car park so we hurried her past all the other day trippers in the hope they did not notice the toxic smell.

  In brief, due to La's extreme cooperation and goodwill, we managed fine in the end but WHY ARE DISABLED TOILETS SO OFTEN LOCKED? It didn't even have an unhelpful sign to tell us we needed a special key from the town hall or wherever which is not bloody good if you are random, if desperate, day trippers.

  Rant over but a classic and pretty successful day out with La and plenty of car.