I was hoping I would meet people I knew, in the end I did, but just in passing, so I would take my beer outside to sip, and mainly people watch. Beer festivals attract a wide range of folks; the card-carrying CAMRA member, the young, the old, the tattooed. And a lot of women. It seems cider is experiencing something of a revival, and whilst there is nothing wrong with that, a glance at the list of ciders will show that most are over 5% and some touching 10% in strength. I like a beer and a drink as anyone, but that is a one way trip to drunk city!
I had three pints, watched people stumble about, as you do, and then at nine I went back outside to wait for Jools to come and pick me up. I slept well that night.
Saturday.
We were up before dawn so we could catch the quarter to seven train into London. It always seems to me that I feel we have more time on such mornings than we do. Suddenly it was six fifteen and we have half an hour to get into Dover, park the car, get tickets and board. But, as ever, we have ten minutes to spare before the train glides out of the station and heads into Harbour Tunnel. And an hour or so later we pull into St Pancras station and have a couple of hours to kill before our next train leaves heading north.
We head over to King’s Cross to see how the new square in front of the station is coming along, now the ramshackle collection of buildings from the 70s have been cleared. Sadly, it wasn’t quite completed, but in places you can get uninterrupted views of Cubitt’s station for the first time since the early part of the 20th century. Back in the station, I look at the departure board and see a service to Norwich being shown. Hmm, no scheduled services to Norwich leave from King’s Cross I think.
We head to platform 5 where a manky class 47 simmers facing the buffers, and I see steam rising at the front of the train outside the trainshed. We walk along the platform to find that an old friend, Oliver Cromwell is waiting to leave for the fine city, and not many people around either. So I get many fine shots, and once the regulator is let out, I get more shots as she hisses and puffs her way out of the platform. That was a bonus.
So afterwards our thoughts turned to breakfast, and the realisation was that I would really like a proper fried breakfast. So, instead of the Italian place we usually go to on the station, we went to the Booking Office, which is part of the hotel. Which in itself should have been a warning to us about the prices. But, we thought what the heck, and so agreed to stump up the £25 a head for an ‘as much as you can eat’ feast. Fruit, a selection of fried food (and the best scrambled egg I have had outside my own kitchen!), waffles, croissants, pain au raisins, and unlimited coffee. We left fifty quid lighter and several pounds heavier!
We waited for a train to be called, then joined the scramble for seats, which was odd as we all had reservations. We were heading to Derbyshire on a railtour to the national tram museum, all in aid of a fine charity. East Midland Trains laid on an HST set for the day, and once at Alfreton, a fleet of coaches were to whisk us to the museum. All rather wonderful.
And indeed it was. We set off and headed up the Midland Main line, or what is left of it. Up through Bedford on to Nottingham and then up to Alfreton. Outside the station, a dozen or so coaches were waiting, so as we were on the carriage furthest from the station exit, we were left with finding a spare seat here and there, but in the end found on coach only half full. So, we were on our way, through villages and towns made of honey-coloured stone, built up the sides of hills. Up through Crich and there was the entrance. Built into the remains of a quarry, the museum has collected a range of buildings and trams, and now that it is approaching 50 years old is looking very mature indeed. It features about a mile of track, and restored trams from various cities in Britain.
First of all we found a seat in front of a fine looking pub, got a couple of drinks in, and then set about demolishing the sausage bread rolls I had made. After the expense of breakfast, not spending another penny the rest of the day was good. We rode trams and I took many photos, which comes as no surprises. Anyway, the afternoon passed, and soon it was four in the afternoon and time to get back on the coaches and head back to the station.
It was all organised so well that we were back at the station with half an hour to spare, filling the platform with hundreds of passengers waiting for the HST to return. The driver of the DMU heading to Norwich must have thought we were all going to try to pile on to his train. But we didn’t want to go to Norwich, we wanted to go home.
So, we piled on the train, took up our seats and settled down as we headed back south as darkness fell, going back via Nottingham, Melton Mowbray and Corby before rejoining the main line and heading back to London in the darkness. At least arriving back at St Pancras we just had to walk to the other side of the station to get our train back home. Sadly, we had just missed a direct service to Dover, so we caught one twenty minutes later changing at Ashford. And we were back in Dover at just past ten, then back home ten minutes later.
Phew, we were shattered.
Sunday.
We lay in bed until Mulder considered it high time we got up and fed him. It was a glorious day, and very warm indeed, once the sun was high it felt like high summer again. We went for a short walk, just along to the glade in search of butterflies. Sadly, there were just a couple of Speckled Woods, but no blues could be seen. The hedgerows are still full of berries. We have picked plenty enough for jams, chutneys and blackberries for crumbles. So we just looked and marvelled at the size of the spiders in their glistening webs.
At lunchtime we headed to Tesco; with the usual chaos this entails. So, with that done I could lay on the sofa and listen to the City game on the radio. A home game against Chelsea was always going to be tough. Despite us being the 18th biggest spenders in all of Europe this summer, Chelsea spent more than we did on all our 8 players signed than they did on a single player. The gap is huge and will only get bigger. We were drawing 1-1 going into the last ten minutes, but conceded two late goals to slump to a 3-1 defeat and slip into the bottom three. Next up is an away game with Arsenal, but I hope after that we might have some winnable games!
In the evening, we had Jools’ brother and family round for dinner: I cooked a turkey crown and all the trimmings. Somehow that took most of the rest of the day. What with the cooking, the eating and the chatting. After clearing up, and they having left, Jools and I sat outside on the patio, it being so warm still, and as it was a new mood, the sky was incredibly dark, and we could see the milky way, all wispy overhead.
And that was your weekend, peeps…..
I suppose I should mention that for the past eight days, I have been generally allergy free; which is nice. As is the massive doses of antibiotics, nay, horse antibiotics I have been on. The redness on my shin is lessening, which is also nice.
I guess one of the things about feeling better is it is only at that point that you realise how crap you felt before. And at times I have felt crap. Really horribly crap. But then it’s something to get through, get up, go to work so you can collapse at the end of the day and do nothing. Now, there is no excuse, and so hopefully the exercise thing will begin again, and then things will really begin to look up.
So, for now I treasure each night of unbroken sleep, and thrill to getting something close to eight glorious hours. It would have been that last night, except Mulder jumping on the bed once again mewing that maybe we should like to forgo the final hour of sleep so we could get up and put some food in his bowl.
Please.
But at least I feel human again, and one mostly alive at that.
Which is nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment