Well, after three 9+ hour sleeps in a row (despite the best intentions of Louis), I am finally over my whirlwind trip to the UK. For the most part, I had an absolute blast – seeing friends and family again and getting to watch my dear friend Roo tie the knot – but some aspects were extremely tedious. My mistake was assuming I could fit so much into so short a time, a mistake I shall NOT be repeating in a hurry. I had made myself a list of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to see, and set it out in a timeline. On paper, it all looked very reasonable – but I never factored in the delights that UK transport offers, particularly over a bank holiday. That was my downfall…
Anyway, Thursday morning saw us out the door at 7am so I could catch the 8 o’clock train from Angouleme to Paris. This was an absolute breeze, as was the Eurostar itself. The only annoying part was lugging both a large bag and also a suit across Paris, but even this wasn’t too terrible. Having been trained on London’s hideous tube, Paris’ far more genteel Metro held no fear for me.
In no time at all, I was pulling up into St Pancras Station and feeling highly excited to be back in the big Smoke again. My first stop was for a bottle of water and my second was to top up my Oyster travel card. On both occasions, my brain automatically kicked in to French mode and I garnered some blank looks from the staff at both places before I realised what I was doing. It was a real effort to avoid doing this for the first couple hours, just as it was truly freaky travelling on vehicles that drove on the left. I suppose 9 months is a fairly long time to be away.
So, after travelling around 450 miles in a matter of hours, my good transport karma was quickly and efficiently battered to death by London. I got on a bus from St Pancras to Stoke Newington, where I had arranged to stay in Roger’s spare room (Roger of the “Mansac” fame). The ride should take anything from 20 – 45 minutes depending on London’s incessant and soul-destroying traffic. My journey took a little over 1.5 hours, neatly killing my “great to be back in London” buzz. I finally made it to Roger’s somewhat later and more flustered than planned, threw down my hated luggage and took a shower. The first item on my list was to catch up with the lovely Fran, with whom I used to work at the SII (now called CISI, previously called SI. A pile of crap is still a pile of crap, regardless of what label you place on it, guys…). We met up in the City just in time for the surreal evening rush-hour and went to the local for a great catch up and a few beers. That evening, Roger and I indulged my craving for an Indian takeaway and sat catching up, drinking wine and watching silly TV.
He lives on a quiet street, for London, but nonetheless, I slept poorly, having become used to the total silence that is night-time in the countryside. I was up at 8, showered, then started to prepare myself for my full day. I was being economical with my bus usage so did a lot of walking about, adding blistered feet to the list of irritants London had to offer. I charged into Covent Garden, got the batteries replaced in my watch, then back to the eastern side of the City to go and visit “Mr Green” (know what I mean), then back to Stoke Newington on foot to deposit my purchases.
Next, I got the bus to Euston to make my way up to see the family in Olney. I purchased a set of off-peak return tickets, climbed aboard and listened in disbelief as, 2 minutes before we set off, a humourless man came over the tannoy to inform us that 3.45pm is considered by train companies as a “peak” time. The shameless, blood-sucking parasites! The soulless man went on to say that no exchanges, top-ups or negotiations would be tolerated and anyone with an off-peak ticket should get off at once. Given that my return journey was going to be on a weekend, there was no way I was going to a) miss this train and b) pay an extra 50% just because Virgin Trains believed the 5pm rush hour had started early, so I plugged in my ipod and mentally prepared a “confused French tourist” routine in my head. Luckily, the conductor didn’t notice my ticket was not valid. The man next to me was less fortunate and had a lengthy argument with the conductor, while I sheepishly looked out of the window and kept quiet.
The 27th of August was my late grand-father’s birthday, so traditionally, we get together for a family meal in his honour, so it was fortunate I could make it that evening. Nan, Dave and Rosie joined Mum, Dad and I for a spectacular dish of feta-stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in bacon. Mmmm! We stayed up late, demolishing wine, vodka and brain-cells, then called it a night some time after midnight. On Saturday, I got to meet my current website client: a very lovely man called Gordon Cole. The project has been going on for quite some time now, and the end is still far from in sight, but the meeting was productive.
At around 1:30, Mum took me up the road to the very pretty and timeless village of North Crawley, where Roo’s wedding ceremony and reception were taking place. The ceremony itself was a bit too long and far too religious for my tastes, but it was a beautiful church – and Roo made an exceptionally beautiful bride. All of my peers seem to have at least one baby each these days and one of them, Laura and Luke’s son, Joseph, endeared himself to me no-end when he chose a nice quiet point in the proceedings to interrupt the vicar by vomiting baby-spew all over his dad’s head. Fantastic.
The reception was in a marquee back at Roo’s mother’s place just round the corner, and was a very elegant and relaxed affair. We snacked on ice cream, cakes and sandwiches, slipped off to the pub for a while, then got back in time for the main event: a whole, roasted hog. Yum! It was great to catch up with so many of my school friends, and to see Roo’s lovely parents again. Unfortunately, though, the accumulated lack of sleep – and accumulated alcohol intake – were beginning to sap my energy, so when the disco dancing started shortly after, I took this as my cue to slip away.
Despite not going too nuts, I was still hung over the next morning. This was unfortunate, as Sunday was my real challenge. Stop 1: see nan. Easy. Stop 2, see my bestest mucker Anna in Newport Pagnell, up the road. Easy. Step 3: get from Milton Keynes back to Euston. On the bank holiday. Not so easy. Remember those tickets I nearly had to go and pay even more for? Maybe they could have told me when I bought them that, actually, there are no trains, peak or otherwise, travelling to London this weekend. They could at least have posted that information online when I checked the train times that morning – but no, they decided to ambush me with this when I got to the train station. I’d had a couple beers with Anna, and had planned to use the station loos before getting on the train, but all of a sudden, I was being herded onto an overly full coach, scheduled to take 1.5 hours to get to Watford Junction – still about 20 miles away from London. 15 minutes into the journey and I was already in desperate need of a pee and fearing I wouldn’t make it. I could have cried when “M1 : severe delays” flashed overhead on the roadsigns. I dont know how, but somehow, I survived just over 2 hours on this coach from hell. As soon as I got off, I sprinted towards a pub, realised even that was too far, so instead described my frustration against the wall of Watford Junction Rail station. This felt righteous, as well as FANTASTIC.
The train companies weren’t through with me yet though: next, was a train from Watford to London that made it a couple hundred yards up the road, and then just sat there for over half an hour. By this point, my carefully planned day was ruined. I had a list of supplies to buy while in London but all the shops were due to shut at 5. I also had 2 drinks meetings with friends I had to put back and 2 other potential drinks that I had to cancel (sorry David and Steve!). I was in a rather black mood at this point. I made it in to Euston at 4:45. I should have been there at a little after 2. Bastards.
My first glimmer of good luck that day saw me on a bus to Islington that made excellent time, so I did actually manage a couple lightning raids on a few shops. I didnt even have time to dig out my shopping list, but from memory, I think I managed to get about 70% of the things we wanted. All this while dragging my hated luggage with me. I finally collapsed in a bar in Islington a little before 6, just in time to meet my friend Zoe and her boyfriend Steve. It was great to catch up, but by this point, I was extremely tired and full of a generic murderous rage towards my fellow man, so said my goodbyes and resolved to just get myself back to Roger’s and sleep. My next drinks appointment was with Alan and Anya, who I hadnt seen for ages, so didnt really want to blow them out, but I knew I was now decidedly poor company. I got hold of them only to find they were in a bar not 5 minutes away, so I couldn’t really say no. I joined them for a few drinks but was dead on my feet so slipped off around 10. I was waiting for a bus when I realised my chores were STILL not over: I had to swing by our old house in Dalston to collect our post and pay the tenant for some post he had couriered over to us a while back. I got to his around 10:30, collected the post, and then decided I couldnt face going one step further, so called in on our friend and ex-neighbour, Iain. He kindly put me up for the night, for which I was extremely grateful.
Well, that is about the end of my Odyssey in England. From Dalston I got to Kings Cross to get my Eurostar train home and had a painless and uneventful trek all the way down to Angouleme, getting in around 8pm. Sharon had made us both dinner, which was very sweet of her, but we made our excuses soon after and crawled home. I wanted to see the boys, and more importantly, to sleep!