Saturday 28th April 2012

So, after battling with my work laptop for a couple of hours, and it deciding to lock me out refusing to believe it had ever met me before, I went down to dinner leaving the laptop to think about what it had done. There is something very sad about a hotel that deals with the business traveller; about a dozen tables with four seats are scattered around the bar area, each one has four place settings, a single flower in a small vase at the centre of the table; and at each table, a single customer, each reading a free copy of the"i" newspaper. I join them at a table on my own. I order a Caesar Salad followed by Beef Wellington with fresh vegetables. And a pint of fully leaded Stella; none of that namby pamby 4% stuff they insist on advertising on TV. And despite being full enough after two courses, I hear myself ordering the cheeseboard and another pint of wifebeater. Oh, I was full. I went back up to my room and flicked through the bizarre selection of TV channels; for example, BBC3; yes, but BBC4; no. I went to bed. Up with the larks in the morning, and laid in bed listening to the BBC news on the TV. I have a shower and just past seven head down to breakfast. Once again single people sitting alone at tables for four people. I have bran flakes and fruit salads, managing to ignore the selection of fried food on offer. Outside it had stopped raining, so I managed to keep dry on the 5 minute walk to work. And then followed a three and a half hour meeting with my boss, more fighting with my laptop, which did actually acknowledge my existence and allow me to log on. What amazed me was that at nine in the morning, a tray of bacon sandwiches was brought in for the folks who work in the office, they have free cans of drink too, and yet we who work on the service sites get neither. Something wrong somewhere I feel. Anyway, at half twelve, the taxi comes to pick me up to take me to the station for my train at twenty past one. I had a seat booked, but the seat had no window! I mean how did that happen in the 21st century, on a long distance train, they put in seats that have no window. But before the train arrives, I go to the laughingly named 'buffet' and order a panini and a coffee. The panini is microwaved and horrible, and somehow the coffee is even worse. I leave to coffee on a wall on the station as they are no bins on the station. Knowing the seat has no window, I buy a copy of Private Eye to read, and I read it all in the time, an hour and three quarters, it took to reach Euston. I grab a tube to St Pancras, and a train to Ashford left within 10 minutes; and at Ashford the train to Dover arrived in a couple of minutes. The upshot being that I left Warrington Bank Quay at twenty past one and was at Dover at five. Three hours 40 minutes, which isn't bad for a travel time from Lancashire. Jools was waiting for me in the car, and it took just over 5 minutes to get home and put the kettle on. The weekend had arrived!