And we are back on the road, but
only for a short week this week, Tuesday to Thursday. Today started off with me hauling my sorry
ass out of bed and finally making my way to the train station for the train to
Doncaster. At Doncaster I have about a
45 minutes wait for my super fast train to London and today I spend that 45
minutes stood next to the train spotters of Doncaster. Before you assume I am going to make derisory
comments about those guys you would be wrong.
Not because they are all taller than me or that there were six of them
but because those guys know their stuff.
They knew why the trains were being delayed from London and why trains
were being delayed heading north, they knew every train freight and passenger where
it was going and what time it would be back through Doncaster. I was waiting for them to start telling me how
my project was going. Seriously though,
they were really interesting and there is a question that I really wanted to
ask them. When you see a green light for
the train to proceed it often has letter next to it like A or E or M or S, you
get the drift, I am sure you have seen these letters. I wanted to know what they mean and was
really pushing myself to ask, but I was a bit shy and just stood there,
watching them all really happy talking to each other about trains and rushing
from one platform before returning to stand near me and then rushing to
another. I envied the fact they were so passionate
about something and seemed to have friends.
My train arrived and I didn’t bother taking the number or getting
excited cause I was climbing aboard.
Perhaps that is the difference between them and me.
One short sleep later and I was at
London Kings Cross, walking through the station and a quick glance confirmed
that the Alan Rickman memorial was still there and in fact seemed to be growing
as I am sure there are more flowers there than last week.
Shock horror but on my way home it
all changed as the flowers had been removed and it was bare, I suppose it couldn’t
stay for ever but I was surprised to see it gone.
I left work at 6.45 p.m. and had
arranged to meet my colleagues for a trip down Hammersmith way at 7.30 in the
reception of the hotel so it was rush rush rush. A quick change and I was down in reception
for 7.29 p.m. to be greeted by my two keen colleagues, one from Chorley and one
from Nottingham. With just a quick
salutation of greetings we were on our feet and on the way to Russell Sq tube
station. Two hundred and twenty five
stops later, or at least it felt like that, we were surfacing at
Hammersmith.
The plan of action was to do the
river walk and take in a couple of pubs as my Nantwich colleague had shown me
this walk a while ago and now that he has moved on to pastures new it is my
turn to take up the mantle. First stop was the Bottom Bench, the bench that has
been dedicated to Dr Rik Mayall and it is nice to see a couple of flowers had
been put there recently. We passed the
bench with the normal memories flooding back of The Young Ones and Bottom as we
then made our way to the river and the Blue Anchor, famous for a scene from
Minder when Terry and Arthur met for a pint.
Unlike them we did not sit outside and went in out of the cold. As we were ordering a drink we saw the food
menu and as the prices were reasonable (for London) we decided as by the time we would leave the pub another
place may not be serving food so we partook in eateries. For me it was the Blue Anchor Burger which
had pulled pork and was very nice if not too filling. My Chorley colleague who said he was having
the Blue Anchor Burger bottled it and went for the classic burger. The Nottingham dude had fish and chips, very
northern.
After our foray into West London
food we headed down the river and to The Dove, which is a lovely pub on the river
and in summer I bet is very popular. We
had a drink in there and then moved on.
There is another pub which the plan was to visit but it was 10:15 p.m.
now and we decided or rather I suggested that we head to the tube at Ravenspark
or something like that and get back to the hotel and visit the pub next to the
hotel. We jumped on the tube and two
hundered and thirty five stops later we were back at Russell Square just in
time to see the two pubs near the hotel close their doors.
I have to admit that if you want a
pub crawl host I may not be the best person to call, since we were out a total
of three and a half hours and managed two drinks in two pubs. However I am expecting thank you letters from
the livers of my colleagues.
Back at the hotel it was time to
check emails, make sure nothing was urgent and by 11:30 was nicely tucked up.
So for last night, Night all
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