Bonjour. I am back from my 9-day trip to the UK and very pleased to be here. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself- I had a blast – but I did find myself missing home at times. My last trip, back in August was just 4 days, during which I went to a wedding, saw the family and caught up with friends in London. It was exhausting and I vowed to never try and so something so silly again. This time round it was all far more relaxed.
Last Monday (24th) Matt and I were up really early to get to Angoulême in time for my train to Lille. This was my first time on this route and I enjoyed it. You get nearly all of the distance done in one shot, then simply switch platforms at Lille station and you are on the Eurostar, only 1.5hrs from St Pancras. Neat. I didn’t have a return ticket with me because the one I ordered through the post never arrived. When I called to request a replacement I was told the only option was to buy a new one at a station and then get reimbursed for the originals, so having time to kill in Lille, I got this sorted out. Well, more or less – being France it was a little more complicated and involved more pieces of paper, but it worked out ok. My serene and peaceful journey experience altered drastically the moment I got on a 30 bus to Dalston. It was about 4pm and there were chav mothers talking on phones whilst their snotty brats were screaming “I Spy” questions at each other, against a background of different music playing out load on teenagers’ phones… Hell on toast. I had a headache within minutes and was left wondering how I ever used to do it.
However, tranquillity was restored as soon as I got to Iain Clarke’s place – my kind host for the London part of this trip: thanks again Mr C. He got in from work around 7pm and cooked us dinner. His flat-mate, Sids, was also around that evening, which was really nice as we hadn’t really caught up in ages. She was in fine form, having recently taken the bold step of quitting her job of 12 years (and first ever job) to pursue a legal career. We had a couple bottles of Rioja, a real treat for me, and then called it a night.
The next morning I paid a visit to Mr Green and made a purchase to keep our stockpile healthy, then continued on to Euston where I caught the train up to Milton Keynes to visit the family. I got in around 2pm and right off the train, I met my bestest mucker, Anna, who conveniently works just minutes from the station. We had a beer and chatted for about an hour and then she had to get back, so I called for a lift. Dad picked me up as he wasn’t working that day. The reason he wasn’t working was he had to have a tooth removed and a replacement fitted. Not fun at all. He was understandably not quite at his best, but got over the pain and was back on solid foods just a couple days later, so seemed to recover quickly. We had a nice evening in and a good long dinner with plenty of red wine, and enjoyed Mum & Dad’s new wood-burning stove: bigger and more efficient than the last. It was doing a fine job of warding off the bitter chill outside.
The next couple days were spent chilling out and pottering in Olney, which was most enjoyable. Dad came back for lunch every day (soup the first few times) and got the stove going. I saw Nan a couple times, and also checked out what items of furniture she has stored in the numerous sheds in her garden. There were a number of tables, but unfortunately, none of them will really do as a dining table for us. We will probably take one anyway and find another use for it, and there were a few other bits and pieces as well, which all helps. Mum took a couple half days and on one afternoon, took me to a sort of 2nd hand furniture depot in the nearby village of Carlton. They had tons of stuff but nothing that was really suitable for us.
On Friday we were joined for dinner by Dave & Rosie and had a few cocktails and a healthy amount of wine to wash down our delicious dinner. Dave & I had a good long discussion about future plans for the place we bought together about 4 years ago. It has fallen in value by about 10% so neither of us want to sell, but the mortgage will be a problem for me before too long. Anyway, we now have a plan of action, which is good.
The next morning, Dad took me up to his workshop at Hyde Farm (just a couple miles up the road from their place). The farm is a fair size and has geese, ducks, chickens and sheep, and no doubt more besides. Dad told me that he had given up eating lamb and the reason was having witnessed at the farm the moment when the infants are separated from their mothers. Apparently, the ewes howl and cry in the most pained way – for hours. When an infant weighs a certain amount, normally at just a few weeks old, it is marked (the Mark of Death, Dad calls it) and taken away to be processed. Just like… well, like lambs to the slaughter, really. I don’t eat lamb anyway, but now I really don’t eat lamb. After the tour of his workshop, we bought some fresh eggs, which soon became part of a scrummy fry-up breakfast, courtesy of Mum.
I was off soon after to make it to a late lunch in Islington with our friend David Cox, who I hadn’t seen in ages. We had a nice meal and good catch up, and a number of drinks afterwards too. It was a truly freezing day though, especially as it started getting dark, so I caught the bus back to Dalston. Iain was out for the evening so I enjoyed some of what I had bought from Mr Green and snuggled up with my book. Sunday was a warmer day and the sun was even out occasionally, so I decided to walk into Islington and have a browse. I was doing my best to walk everywhere in fact, to save on bus fares. Seems you may as well rip holes in your pockets when in London- it all just trickles away. From there, I walked in to the City to see if by chance the bar where I am having my (ahem)th birthday party was open. No, as it turned out, so I walked back to Dalston. Iain made a truly delicious meal of grilled chicken with lemongrass, coconut milk and coriander that night. It was deee-vine. He had a tax return to hand in the next day, or face a £100 fine, so he dealt with that after dinner and I went back to my book.
The next day I made several trips to the City, mostly on foot. My feet are now blistered and unhappy things. The first trip was to meet my friend Fran from CISI, my ex-employer. We used to have a weekly Pizza Express lunch when we worked together, so we revived the tradition, each having exactly the same pizza we always have, with the one change that Fran had to specify that the egg on her pizza be very well cooked, as she is pregnant! Great news. After lunch, I returned to Iain’s for a while, then was back down to the City for post-work drinks. It was supposed to be with Zoe (also ex-CISI) and Peter (still CISI poor thing) but Zoe couldn’t make it in the end so it was just the two of us. We had a number of beers then parted company and I headed back to Dalston. Monday was Sids’ last day at work so she got back late and like me, also a bit tipsy. We sat up drinking wine and having a laugh for a bit but I collapsed soon after. London was starting to catch up with me…
I did finally make it to the bar where my party is to be held so have now got all that sorted out – they have some really excellent sounding cocktails on the menu so I am looking forward to a very messy and (given the bar’s bizarre decor) surreal night. I didn’t get up to much else otherwise, except few drinks with our friend David White (Big D) in Soho on Tuesday night. There were potentially going to be a fair few of us, but in the end, only us two could make it. Anyway, we had a few drinks and then caught the bus back to Angel where I homed in with relish on a greasy chicken burger with chips. Mmmm… so good.
My return journey was a breeze, which, given the contents of my luggage, was most welcome. I strolled as casually as I could through the Eurostar security with Mr Green’s bounty in my luggage without raising so much as an eyebrow. Despite going via Paris on the way back, which is more of a pain as you have to get the metro to another station, I had a very easy journey home, aided by being by now engrossed in my book. I was unimpressed by my experience at Montparnasse station though. I was hungry but didn’t fancy a sarnie as I’d had one back in London that morning so I was overjoyed to see a sign advertising “Pizzas and Cocktails”. I charged over to it with fantasies of delicious melted cheese delights, washed down by exotic beverages. The reality however, went more like this:
Me – “What pizzas do you have, please?”
Server – “We don’t do pizzas any more. We have sandwiches”
Me – “Oh… Ok. And the cocktail menu?”
Server – “We have beer or wine. We have no cocktails”
Me – *sigh*… “Ok… A beer and a sandwich, please”
There was no doubt about it: I was back in France.