I started today full of hope – a day where I was starting a two-day journey into the murky depths of London, but not without some redeeming features. Two client meetings with ‘top hole, nice clients’ and supper with my best buddy, Colin.
So, when it all started to go horribly wrong with my own personal harbinger of doom, Joe Bloggs at the station greeting me as I hauled out my bag from the trusty Vectramobile with the immortal phrase ‘if you’re here for the 8.30am to London, you’ve got a long wait – it’s delayed by an hour!’ Was I discouraged? No!
I had a nice cuppa with DM then kissed him goodbye and set about trying to rearrange my meeting…….I had my assistant back and forth trying to organise something mutually agreeable to me and the client and eventually came up with a plan. The plan was, I was two hours late and that was that. Bugger.
My journey was eventful, not least because of the conversations I was hearing, including ‘Nelly Scroggins’ who works for a famous DIY chain who was being elevated above the minimum wage and being made ‘manager’ of her section of Truro’s branch of the chain in question…..I wonder how she would have felt knowing he salary had been discussed at full volume by an area manager on the train.
Apparently our delay was the responsibility of the fuckwit who threw a shopping trolley, a TV and a computer onto the trainline at Cambourne, just in time for the first train from Penzance to hit it and cause havoc for the rest of the morning…….string the culprits up by the goolies I say.
Opposite me on the train were a couple reading some very serious reading matter – there was me, reading ‘the white stuff’ – a novel about a couple who can’t conceive….just guess what the ‘white stuff was’, while the folks opposite me were reading about saving the human race – did I ever feel inadequate???
My meeting was two hours late. I then checked into my hotel and sorted out my bits and bobs before meeting Colin for a celebration of his birthday.
Now the day got good. We went to the cinnamon club – a swanky Indian restaurant, just a stone’s throw away from the Houses of Parliament. Wow, what a place. Given my already exposed love of wood and a lesser-known but equally potent love of stained glass, coupled with books – this place is an ex-library, the surroundings were perfect.
The food was………..well, it was simply divine.
I do love food, good food. The flavours and combinations here are something else. Exquisite.
Me? I just munched my way through everything I was served with a huge smirk on my face.
We went there via this wonderful pub, the view from the window was pretty spectacular by anyone’s standards. Badger beer on hand-pump too.
I came back to my hotel in the ‘burbs, having promised my Mum that I would NOT walk across the park to my hotel, even though the route is way more direct than the road. Any fool knows that way lies heartbreak. Tonight though, two slightly drunk men also got off my train and staggered across the park, one ten feet in front of me and the other ten feet behind. I reckoned I was on a safe bet, having an escort like that. I got the heebeegeebees when the one behind peeled off on another path so I bunched up with the first, only to realise after he anxiously looked over his shoulder twice, that he was as scared of me as I was of being left behind by him….sometimes the world isn’t as bad as we suppose.
Now I’m ‘home’ for the night in a ‘budget’ hotel and tomorrow I have more meeting then home. Love that. Home…..to Cornwall…….MY home…….
Last year, I was in Paris