We left Edinburgh at some ungodly hour of the morning, with the promise of dirty bad weather ahead: gale force winds and blizzards in the north. Good time to get out of Dodge!
More fun awaited us at the train station, as all the trains on the board had a platform assigned, except for our trusty 8.30am to King’s Cross. Hmm. We wandered about, looking for info, and at 8.15am all the screens went blank. More hmm. Lots of people were now wandering around looking slightly panicked. Since it was now 8.25am and no info on the screens, I found a harried-looking person with an official-looking badge and asked her where our train might be. She said she “guessed” it would be Platform 11, so we rushed over there, and successfully boarded before the train left.
The wifi system gave us free access to the train update webpage, which was a font of information, such as telling us that all further trains north of Newcastle were now cancelled due to the weather, and apparently shortly after we left Edinburgh, Waverley Train Station was closed until engineers could assess the building! Scary stuff.
We were continuing nicely until I used my 15 mins of free wifi to post this on facebook. This apparently jinxed us well and truly, and we stopped. This was apparently due to signal failure somewhere, but since at least three trains passed us in the opposite direction I’m forced to conclude that it was actually Signal Jinxing that caused the problem. We started again, then stopped. Then started, and stopped.
Eventually we limped into King’s Cross Station almost two hours late, but hey, at least we hadn’t been blown over like the truck in Scotland!
After two short tube hops, we burrowed out from the Underground at Lancaster Gate, to be faced with Hyde Park on one side, and our hotel on the other. Great location.
The same can’t be said for the state of the hotel. It’s a bit similar to the Tyddyn Llan: it’s an old building that is a bit in need of some love, but this one is even more so. The furnishings are all a bit old, the carpet has bare patches, the floor creaks and we can hear the people in the room upstairs – whenever they move it sounds like elephants tapdancing on the ceiling, the tiles in the bathroom are cracked, there’s a bit of a musty aroma, mixed with stale cigarette smoke from the “smoking” rooms… and the lift is only big enough for two people, or one with luggage!
Nevertheless, the bed is big (it’s two single beds squashed together, which at least gives us room!) and the bathroom has hot water, even if the pressure isn’t great and it’s liable to change temperature if you look at it funny. The room size isn’t too bad: there’s room for all our stuff, and it’s conveniently located and relatively reasonably priced.
We wandered out quite early for dinner, as we’d missed lunch due to the train fracas, and stopped at a pub near Paddington Station which looked quite nice. The food was pretty dull, but at least they had Aspell on tap.
Next stop was the Sainsbury’s in Paddington Station (like everyone else in London, it seemed!) for supplies: yoghurt and pineapple for dessert and some GF bread to augment brekky.
The walk back to the hotel was pleasant; while it’s cold here, it’s nowhere near as cold as Edinburgh was!
Two Weeks Away 