waterloo sunset’s fine…
Once again, a delightful few days in London comes to an end and despite missing a couple of my regular callers who were sadly committed elsewhere, and unbelievably being no-showed for the first time in ten months (the only real irritation here being that I could have gone out earlier rather then sit around the hotel waiting for some idiot from guess-where). I can only apologise sincerely to the gentleman who was so keen to book on Friday; if it wasn’t for the aforementioned no show, you would have been made very welcome, and I will hopefully be able to catch you some time soon!
The minor downsides were more than made up for by an exceptionally plush room upgrade following a particularly trying reservation cockup which was almost, but not quite enough to put me off my stride, bearing in mind that I was left with precisely half an hour afterwards to calm down, unpack and ready myself for my first visitor (a charming gentleman not without problems of his own that day; after agreeing we should both probably have stayed in bed we decided to test the theory, which turned out rather well), an excellent moules/steak béarnaise & frites/banoffee pie dinner later that evening and an exciting assortment of callers old and new to keep me occupied over the following days – to those who missed out, I will be back in December and am making arrangements already.
My best-laid plans for a visit to the Aquarium were annihilated by vast queues every time I looked, and those who visited will not be too surprised to hear that a fair bit of the little spare time I had was enjoyably spent relaxing in my extremely luxurious London digs; I did find time to have cheeseburgers and fat chips with the very lovely Lilliana (a longstanding confederate and fellow tea-drinker) along with my fellow moderator on SAAFE, the delightfully posh Emily Jones – both at the same time and for free, dagnamit! Our original plan of laying waste to Soho’s branch of the Hummingbird Bakery was somewhat scuppered by the discovery that whilst it was replete with fabulous baked goods, proper hot chocolate and currently a very fetching Halloween window display it does not fact boast a bog, and since even people who eat £5 pieces of cake need to wee occasionally (particularly after an hour and a half of window shopping, battling the tourist crowds and negotiating the elaborate maze of dig-everything-up-ask-questions-later fencing currently making its presence felt at Tottenham Court Road), we retreated to a nearby bar for gossip-and until home time.
I also managed to catch up with the ever fabulous Kinky La Rue, one of my favourite ladies who, never being one to say no to a cupcake herself fortunately helped me make up for my loss the day before and a carb-heavy, garlicky and informative lunch was had down the road beforehand, since I had already checked out and was feeling decadent (and don’t like anyone to sit near me on the train). Being in the early stages of planning an exciting new venture early next year, and her fortunately being very much in the know I was very happy to be able to pick her brains as well as moan, rant and howl with laughter about the day to day stuff that those outside the job would never believe in a month of Sundays. As for the new venture, all will be revealed, but not just yet…
As I mentioned before, the rail engineering works meant catching a replacement bus from York onwards, another minor irritation in theory, but which in practice actually turned out to be far more warm and comfortable than the usual train, and considerably more so than the platform at York station; as I have certainly mentioned before, this particular point on the map is possibly the coldest place in England irrespective of season or prevailing weather conditions, and even the taxi driver who assisted with the final leg of my journey (I know it isn’t far, but do bear in mind that I was tired, full of pizza and cake and accompanied by a suitcase the size of a Nissan Micra) agreed that it was probably haunted, since nothing else could realistically explain the constantly Arctic temperature. I finally arrived home at half past ten, to find that the keys for the four padlocks on my suitcase had gone missing and had to get the bolt cutters out. Bloody typical.
To this week, and I am already booked on Thursday, most of Wednesday and Tuesday morning – the stoic and valiant punters of Scarborough have been extremely organised! I will be around now until my Scotland trip on the 8th November; having found alternative accommodation which I am much happier with, I am looking forward to my visit far more, and will be available from around 3pm on the Monday until close of play on Tuesday – I will be arriving in Edinburgh on the Wednesday afternoon and am free until the early evening, all day Thursday 11th, and even first thing Friday morning (for the particularly intrepid).
I have even prepared myself to some extent for the fact that the local gentlemen apparently dislike planning in advance, but the usual rules will still apply. Anyone ringing and expecting to just turn up sometime in the next hour will have as much luck as they do here in Scarborough but reasonable queries for later in the day ought to be fine, provided you’re happy with the idea that if somebody else has got in first, you’ve got no-one else to blame but yourself. For now, I’m happy to return to my usual gentle routine – as ever, those who would think they would like to join me, there’s a few free seats…
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