It’s not that I don’t like work, but it did strike me that today was cause for sadness, as it was the end of my holiday and the start of being responsible again. My friend Althea would say I am always responsible but then it’s a comparative thing isn’t it. So I said goodbye to the grubby hotel, my grubby host, the grubby waiter, and the grubby room, and popped this morning’s boiled eggs in my handbag in case I got hungry later. I didn’t.
I caught a train to Bournemouth, when I would really have rather been catching a train to Salisbury or Exeter, but I caught it anyway. I couldn’t imagine anything interesting to look at in Bournemouth except the sea, and we have sea at home. The train journey was pleasant and expensive, and as these two are generally mutually exclusive, I went with pleasant, and tried not to play with my BlackBerry to find a more generous currency converter. I arrived in Bournemouth early enough to find nice lodgings (as directed by the Polish tourist information person) and wander around the town; I went all along the foreshore and all the way back again. Bournemouth is very English – deckchairs for hire, signs warning about potential safety hazards, and a very long pier with fences all around it to stop you from falling into the sea heaven forbid. This is nice, isn’t it, I thought to myself, but where is the promised four star Cavendish Hotel with a view of the ocean? I went to a different tourist office and asked another Polish information officer the same question as I had asked the first time – where is the four star Cavendish Hotel? I was given the same answer as before, which once again, led me to a rather pink looking hotel, admittedly Cavendish Hotel, but not a four star job. Perhaps tourist information offices should consider employing information officers who know the area. I went to my room and looked up the address of the Cavendish hotel. It had moved to Eastbourne when I wasn’t looking.
I decided to go to Eastbourne as soon as I could, as that’s where the rest of the conference people would be. So I went to my room and on the free internet kindly provided by my landlady, found the time of the first train to Eastbourne, booked a taxi to the station, drank some red wine, and washed my hair in a very deep bath. The room was clean and it cost £25 – the same as the grubby one in Stroud. Sometimes I can’t figure out if I have been ripped off or not.
I probably would have been better to check my emails and maps before I bought the train ticket, and travel directly to Eastbourne. Perhaps this was the nagging worry I had in Paris about making a mistake somewhere. After all, there are a lot of changes between Titirangi and Eastbourne, and any small timing error could result in a missed connection. Fortunately I have a clever backup system, which is always to go to an Important Place early, so I go the my airport gate as soon as I can, in case it turns out to be in another airport, and I go to the conference hotel a day early to make sure they are expecting me. Just like I went to the rendezvous place for Deb and I early – oh never mind, you had to be there.
Anyway, the room was clean and the landlady was lovely. I can recommend her place - a Victorian guest house – the Newbury Hotel. Tell her I sent you.
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