A day off and our anniversary

I’m writing this entry on my morning commute. It’s a regular day – up at 5am, let the dogs out (Holly is always jumping around the kitchen with glee, Gravel looks up sleepily from his basket but generally has a trot outside if it’s not raining); then make a cup of tea (fill the kettle through the spout because taking the lid off makes Holly bark loudly); take the tea and dogs upstairs to wake Margaret, Margaret yells at Holly (dirty paws, jumping on her face, licking her face, or all three), then I sit in bed and drink my tea, shower, get dressed and leave at 6.20 or 6.25am to catch the 6.53 train which gets me into King’s Cross at 8am. From there, it’s generally Victoria line to Victoria and into work for 8.20am, but sometimes I’ll walk (which takes an hour) and sometimes I get off at Green Park and walk through the park past Buckingham Palace. This morning it will be straight on the tube, we’re so busy at work that I can’t afford any wasted time and I don’t like to stay later than 5.30pm. Coming home, I leave at 5.30pm, walk to Pimlico or Victoria (depending on whether I’m out at 5.30 or 5.40) and tube to King’s Cross for the 6.10 First Capital Connect to Peterborough, which arrives at 7.20pm. Margaret picks me up and, with luck; I’m home at 7.45pm.

So I leave the house at 6.20am and get back at 7.45pm, bed at 9pm otherwise it’s just too hard to get up in the morning.

Well, it was our 37^th wedding anniversary yesterday and I had the day off so my daily commuter grind was happily absent.

It has been a remarkably mild autumn, one of the warmest Octobers on record and very dry in the east, as it has been all year. In April, no rain at all fell in Cambridgeshire and we had quite a dry summer, although temperatures were not particularly high. In October, I think we had one day’s rain all month. It’s been a real east/west split, there have been floods in the west and it has been a wet summer. Good to live in the east, although they are talking of water restrictions if we don’t get a wet winter to replenish aquifers.

It was mild and sunny 37 years ago on our wedding day and for the following week when we were on honeymoon in London (at the Henry VIII hotel near Lancaster Gate). We didn’t have lots of money, so spent quite a lot of time walking in the parks, which were carpeted with crunchy leaves from the London Planes and still had lots of autumn colour.

Yesterday morning, it was warm enough to have breakfast on the decking in front of the summerhouse, although you have to be careful that a falling leaf doesn’t land in your porridge! Of course, I didn’t get up at 5am and had the luxury of a 6.15 lie-in and a cup of tea from Margaret.

After breakfast, we’d planned a shopping trip to get some ingredients for our evening meal (pasta) and to buy Margaret some walking shoes, as she’s been having trouble with a sore heel and Achilles tendon. We thought some shoes with decent cushioning and foot support would help her recovery. However, I had lost the recipe I had photocopied from a newspaper, so we decided on fish and chips from Crowland.

We went to Peterborough Garden Park and managed to get a pair of shoes from Cotswold, the walking shop, for £65. Margaret seemed to think they would help, but said later that her feet were killing her, although she’d then walked for quite a long way. We were going to have a coffee in Van Hage, the garden centre (which sells all kinds of things as well as plants) and I had a good nosey round for the first time (Margaret goes quite often). We bought some fat balls for the birds and a candle, but I couldn’t face the coffee shop – it was full (as was the whole garden centre) with old people. Barbara, our neighbour who is around 70, had been to Southwold for the weekend and had told Margaret that it was nice but there were a lot of old people there. She hadn’t seen the irony. Well Van Hage is like Southwold. Old people are all very well (I’m almost old myself) but when they get into a coffee shop or café, it brings out the worst in them. They fuss about getting a table, they moan about how dear things are and they stand at the coffee counter getting all confused – what’s a mocha again? They all look very anxious and don’t seem to relax and enjoy the experience, but they can’t wait to come back for another treat at Van Hage. I think the place is a magnet for all the old people in Peterborough who can still drive and face the terrors of the ring road.

Anyway, I couldn’t face queuing and eating with that lot, so we headed home with our candle and fat balls and I had a cup of tea and slice of Bara Brith on the decking. It was now genuinely warm.

I took the dogs for a walk around Toneham and had gone up the avenue and along the top to the farm when Gravel emerged from the ditch particularly filthy. Rather than have to bath him at home, I turned back so he could have a swim in the Thorney River and clean up a bit. Holly, who is normally brilliant off the lead, then picked up the scent of a pheasant and put one up in the upper field, which is planted with oilseed rape. No sooner had she started chasing that, than another was put up and a new chase started. She’d put three up when I lost sight of her over the brow. It’s the first time I’ve seen her get Springer syndrome (where the nose takes over from all other senses, particularly hearing) and when she did emerge back into sight, she was at the wrong end of the field, could see me and set off to got through the farm (the way we’d been going). Some frantic shouting and waving got her attention and she caught up with me halfway along the path, panting like a steam train. I made sure they had a good swim and when I got home, Margaret had bought a paper, so it was back to the summerhouse for a read. The wind had picked up and it was a bit blowy on the decking. We had planned to have a gin martini outside, but a good glug of strong martini is not recommended before a drive to Crowland (or anywhere else for that matter) so another cup of tea was all I had.

Margaret had bought us some gin as a joint anniversary present – she said it was the recurring theme of our summer (gin and tonic on the patio/decking/summerhouse). It was called London Gin and was 46%. There are lots of so-called artisan distilleries springing up and I though this was another she’d found. Earlier in the week, Tom had been talking about seeing some gin made in Highgate, so I had a look at the label on this to see if it was, by slim chance, Highgate gin. It was actually made in Holland, a country with a fine reputation for gin, but not where you’d expect a bottle labelled London Gin to come from.

Anyway, our day tailed off into fish and chips (far too big a portion) and instead of leaving some, I ate it all and felt so full I couldn’t move for an hour. I did manage to get up to make us a G&T (not a martini) and the gin was very good, but I was nodding off in the middle of a very good documentary by Frank Skinner on George Formby Jnr. Bed at 9pm and asleep at 9.30 after checking e-mails on my Blackberry. Another few items to add to my list the next day.

Poker playing witches

Interesting night last night. I met Sam and Tom in the World's End on Stroud Green Road. Got there at 6.10pm to find Tom sitting on his motorcycle outside. He was worried about getting a ticket because free parking didn't start until 6.30pm, but when I arrived we went into the pub and found a seat where Tom could keep an eye on his bike (he's very worried about it being stolen because he doesn't have theft insurance).


We'd been in the pub for literally a couple of minutes when some people said there was a traffic warden putting a ticket on his bike. Tom bombed out of the pub and just managed to get his helmet on and ride away before the warden could strike. It was literally 10 minutes before the parking restrictions ended; they must have either been watching Tom or have a policy of doing a last, late sweep to get anyone who thinks "it's nearly time, no-one will do me now."


It was poker night and Hallowe'en fancy dress night. Bit bizarre with all the tables set out with chips and poker sets, then all these people in witches costumes, torn shorts, fake blood and other get-ups started arriving. There was someone dressed as a cat and someone who I thought was wearing a dog suit, but it turned out to be Danger Mouse. I guess it helps your poker face if you have a Danger Mouse mask on.


Sam arrived and wasn't drinking because he's on anti-biotics and he was worried about his liver. Tom couldn't have any more because he was on his motorcycle and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. So it was lime and lemonade for Sam, Tom had nothing and I had another pint of Doombar. Tom had got Lucy a bottle of Japanese wine for her birthday. Lucy wasn't very well, she had a stomach upset (either a virus or something to do with the mussels, oysters of sausage-stuffed mackerel that Sam had made for them at the weekend). Just the thought of sausage-stuffed mackerel makes me feel ill, but I've never tried it, so can't say for sure.


Lucy's dad was at their flat bringing Lucy a present round. She hasn't seen him since last Christmas, so Sam and I hung around a bit to give them time.


Lucy didn't look too well, she was very hot (definitely a virus, says Sam) and we were not very considerate by getting our dinner out. I'd bought some cheese. Ripon Cheese in Pimlico has a deal almost every day where you can get four cheeses for £7.50, so I've taken to getting a tray when I go to Tom or Sam's. It's great value - there's a Swiss cheese called Panoramo (which is hard and has a herb-crusted skin), a French goat log called Buche Blanche, a soft Brie (Irish in this case) and a wedge of St Agur. I'd also got a French stick and taken some Bara Brith which I'd made at the weekend.


Watched a bit of TV - University Challenge and then a Ricky Gervais comedy called An Idiot Abroad. Sam said he didn't think I'd get it and I don't think I did. I don't think Ricky Gervais is a very nice man. I was always uncomfortable watching The Office and there were moments in Extras where I felt he was venturing into territory he shouldn't. They were funny, but sometimes uncomfortable. An Idiot Abroad seems just uncomfortable.

Fast trains, slow trains ...

On Wednesday, October 26, I had a trip to Folkestone to see a customer called View, which uses our arts and entertainment listings to run a series of websites, including www.viewlondon.co.uk.


I haven't been to Folkestone since the 1980s when I took a ferry from there to go on a press trip to France with BMW (and I can't remember much about it at all.


I bought a rail ticket in Peterborough for London to Folkestone and went to St Pancras next door to King's Cross to catch the train. St Pancras station is completely transformed since it became the Eurostar hub; it's more like a shopping mall than a station and because I had half an hour to spare, I had a good look around. King's Cross is being renovated at the moment (it has been for the last five years, it seems) but it will be nothing like St Pancras when it's finished, it will still be a practical station - a place to get trains, not to go shopping.


In any event, I do St Pancras a mis-service because, at the end of the shopping mall, there are some platforms, including trains to Kent on the new high-speed link. This uses the trains pictured below. Built by Hitachi, they come in four units and look pretty businesslike. The train was packed coming into London at 9am, but there was only a handful of people going out. Inside, they are superb, much better than the commuter trains I use each day.







From St Pancras to the first stop at Stratford International is only 10 minutes or so and most of it is either through tunnels or deep cuttings, so there's not much of a view of Hackney or the Lea Valley. For a high-speed train, it doesn't feel very fast, but once you get past Stratford to Ebbsfleet and then Ashford, it really does pick up speed (about 140mph). You go under the river and for a while you're running alongside the M2 (I think) towards Dover, overhauling cars in the fast lane like they're in a different medium.


I have to say, it's massively impressive as a train journey, but Stratford, Ebbsfleet and Ashford stations are truly monstrous buildings - half underground and with awful concrete walls, they are universally grey. It's almost as if someone has tried to make them as ugly as possible. I felt quite sad that we have this superb train stopping at such ugly places. I think if I was a visitor going to the Olympics next year, I might just turn around and go home when I got to Stratford. Why have they made them so awful?


Folkestone station is nicer - a proper old-fashioned station, but one that's had some thoughtless modernisation and years of neglect. It looks as if they've started to renovate it, but run out of money. Why do we let our infrastructure get into such a mess? Folkestone is a typical seaside town; it's seen better days and modern roads have sliced it into disparate parts, but it still has some fine buildings and some grandeur. A lot of these places seem to have got lost in a bit of a timewarp. Considering it's so close to London, some aspects are a million miles away. I was early for the meeting, so I popped into a cafe for a coffee and asked for a skinny Americano. The waitress looked at me as if I was talking a different language and even after explaining what I wanted, she still gave me a latte!


After my meeting, which was in Tontine Street (see footnote) I headed back to the station.


I'd just missed the fast train (by 10 minutes) so took the train to Charing Cross (just coming in) thinking it can't be much slower. Actually, it was a very comfy train (again much better than my commuter trains), but it stopped everywhere, picked up another four coaches in Ashford and then cut across Kent to Tonbridge and Sevenoaks and tiny places I'd never heard of. It took over an hour an a half to get into London and then I hopped off at London Bridge (Charing Cross was another two stops), but what was striking was how lovely the old stations en route were. They were as different to Stratford and Ebbsfleet as an ugly 1970s shopping centre is to an old high street. Better kept, quaint, pleasing to the eye, they looked as if they had been designed to make travelling a pleasure and not an exercise in herding livestock.

Footnote: now 'tontine' isn't a word I've heard in 50 years. I heard my Aunt Pam in Barnton talking about having to go to pay her tontine. It's a form of group insurance/saving scheme which people might have used to pay funeral costs or the like. I guess modern insurance policies have all but done away with them.