Day ten: 9 May: Horsley Park to London

I had spent at least three hours on the internet looking for a nice cheap B&B in London and eventually decided it was a waste of my precious time, so put a deposit on a place with wifi in Bayswater. The wifi was quite an issue, as heaps of places didn’t have it, and some had it for a ridiculous add on price, while others had never even heard of it. Anyway, I consoled myself, Bayswater is a nice area, so it would be worth paying $100 for. Ha bloody ha.

Francoise directed me to what seemed like a very nice habitation, but on arrival I was told my room had been sold, and I would have to go to their sister place along the road. It seems the three hours on the internet was not well spent after all. Fair enough I said, but how was it that I could book a room with a deposit and not get one? Then I remembered my days as a hotel manager, and knowing the answer, decided not to push it. The sister place was such a close relative that I was asked to pay straight away, but in cash. That really irritated me, as I had fifty quid left for my last day and was planning to spend it wisely on visits to castles and lots of wine. Alas, I was forced to spend it on a lousy hostel, which is what my nice habitation turned out to be. Françoise and I walked to the sister hostel, then up three steep flights of stairs to my room, which turned out to be so far away from reception that wifi couldn’t get to it. In fact it was so high up I got vertigo just looking out the window. However, it had a bed and a basin, a mouldy patch in the corner of the room, and no soap or towel. Here's a review I found of it - it's pretty accurate. I found other reviews that were far worse but I don't want to depress you.

The West Two offers basic accommodation and the furnishings are old and tired. It is poorly maintained, facilities are poor and the atmosphere is depressing.

I sat down and wondered why I hadn’t gone to stay with my lovely cousins in Richmond and then remembered that I had decided to be an independent adult now, this being my third visit to London in three years, and it was probably time I tackled the place in an unsheltered way, on my own, paying for meals and beds and stuff and learning how to get around without advice (except from Francoise). But when I thought about it, I realised none of these features was offered as a virtue by either Socrates or Plato, so perhaps I could lean on rellies after all - just a little.

So I sent them a message to say I was in town, and if they had nothing better to do, I would visit them and return Kieran’s book, The Spiritual Tourist, a wonderful dissertation on various spiritual persons and their astounding feats and personal habits. Then I went and looked for the shoe shop in Kensington High Street where I bought some lovely black boots when I was 22 and lived here, but which finally fell apart at the Hamilton field days a few years back (the boots that is, though I was somewhat under the weather as well). Amazingly it was still there, but selling Mr Clark’s shoes. I also found a marvellous good food shop of several storeys, and was caught photographing the cheese room – apparently the market is so good the owners don’t want anyone to find out about it, and don’t let us take photos. So I can't show it to you. I promised not to. While strolling around Kensington I suddenly remembered my text to Anna, opened my phone, and lo there was a response from her saying to hurry around and say hello. So I scampered back to the B&B to get the book and asked Francoise to take me to Richmond, which she did. I think she likes Richmond.

It was wonderful to see them again, though I only saw two year old Bella very briefly, it being her bed time. However, I did get a chance to catch up with Jeanette, the mother of my cousin’s daughter, and we had a bit of a chat on Skype. It did seem odd that I had to travel to London to talk to her, as we both live in Auckland. She doesn’t see Anna and Kieran and Bella as much as she would like to, and even asked Anna to show her the new bump, which will in due course hatch as another grandchild. Anna and Kieran are very entertaining and welcoming. Kieran cooked up lashings of protein for me, which was a huge relief, as the chefs at Horsley Park thought rice risotto was an adequate evening meal, which I disagreed with, but couldn’t seem to do much about.

By the time I had quaffed a few glasses of wine (Kieran had to go for more supplies), talked to Jeanette, gossiped, mused and attempted to interpret various aspects of life with Anna and Kieran, I realised it was my bedtime, and I had to go 'home'. Kieran wanted to send me in a taxi, but I was brave and took the bus and underground, and in due course Francoise and I found ourselves back at the B&B. I had been clever of course, and asked Francoise to make a note of the location, so we had no trouble finding it again. I have my moments.

I quite like London. I lived there for 18 months in my youth, and was looking forward to seeing other places I would recognise, such as Hammersmith station, St Martin in the Fields (I was in the choir), Charing Cross Station, a number of pubs, and the National Gallery. So even though my ‘hotel’ was cheap and nasty, I was a happy camper and fell once again into a deep and meaningful sleep.

Tomorrow: St Pancras, Park Lane and the gallery, all on ten quid

Day seven: 6 May: Horsley Park

If you don’t mind sleeping next to a castle but not in it, Horsley Park was good. The tv worked, my colleagues from CHME were there to enjoy meals and drinks with, and I had a duty to perform. I include a photo kindly sent to me by a delegate who was with me during the castle's chapel inspection, a photo of the castle that I didn't sleep in, and a picture of the sort of room I did sleep in. Note the absence of castle windows, knights, and BlackAdder. The castle would have been more fun. In due course I entertained/bored (choose one) a selection of hospitality academics for 20 minutes with my paper, and some time later the conference came to a close. I am not going to tell you what happened in between because misunderstandings might arise about what we are supposed to do at conferences, and I wouldn’t want that. If you are really desperate, leave a comment, and I’ll direct you to some of my papers. They’re on sex and theft and deviance and stuff so you probably wouldn’t be interested anyway.

Day six: 5 May: Salisbury to Surrey and the Unusual Schoolboy Incident

Connie scrambled a good egg but Salisbury eggs were pale bought ones, not nice yellow free range eggs like the Totnes ones. The poor chooks must be on a different diet. Still, the coffee was hot and strong, just like Rodney. After breakfast I ventured in to Salisbury to check out the cathedral as a sight-catching thing, seeing I was in town. As cathedrals go it was quite spectacular, with lovely Gothic arches (I like high Gothic) and plenty of interesting tombs and chapels. People were very small in those days, as they didn’t have Vogel’s bread and Vegemite to build them up nice and strong (like Rodney), so the little men lying around the cathedral were quite short, and had their arms folded nicely across their chests in a sort of penitent pose, perhaps to protect them from vampires. The spire of the cathedral is the highest in Britain so the local people make quite a thing of it, putting it on all kinds of tacky souvenirs to sell to sight-catchers like me, but I wasn’t sucked in. In fact it is so high that it put a bit of stress on the marble pillars holding it up, and you can actually see the bends in them as they strain to take the weight of the spire. Don’t let anyone tell you marble won’t bend, because it does. Apparently the foundations are only four feet deep, but set in wet gravel, which rather bafflingly keeps the whole thing steady. Apparently the gardener has to water underneath the cathedral every day in case the gravel dries out and the whole thing collapses. I just hope there is never a drought in Wiltshire or the gardener gets sick.

The Magna Carta was housed off to the side of the main building. It was written in 1215 in Latin, so I couldn’t read all of it, just the bits about tables, masters, and love, which is about as far as I got in Latin. I have often wondered why the early Romans were so pre-occupied with tables, masters and love, and daren’t ponder on this too much in case I form the wrong conclusion. Still, it was good to check it, and it’s reassuring to know that even in those days people learned Latin at school, just like I did.

After that I went back and had another look at Stonehenge, but there were still heaps of people perving at it and the weather was freezing, so after a quick circumnavigation, Very Worried, Francoise and I headed off to Leatherhead to the conference hotel. We weren’t going to get caught staying in the wrong hotel again, so I wanted to arrive a day early. We got to Horlsey Park at about 3pm and were devastated to discover that I wasn’t accommodated in the castle. I nearly turned around and went home, but then I remembered that I had promised my boss I would give a paper at the CHME conference, so I decided to stay. The room wasn’t the best, being at the entrance where people could perve in and see me parading around in my next to nothings, so they gave me a room change and I went upstairs. Quite frankly, I think this was a sensible move, as the complaints my next to nothings would have generated with other customers would not have been easy to deal with. By the time I had unpacked and ironed my clothes, done some washing, and generally sorted everything out, it was getting on towards 4pm. It was about then I discovered I had donated my power adaptor to the Salisbury B&B, and would therefore be unable to use my laptop, clean my teeth, or check my Blackberry until I got a replacement. So Very Worried, Francoise and I headed into Guildford to buy a new adaptor and return Very Worried to the rental car company. All went quite well until I ignored Francoise’s instructions and wound up doing rather repetitive circles in the middle of Guildford. It was busy and difficult to find my way out. Very Worried was true to her name. I eventually asked Francoise to take me to the nearest point of interest (which turned out to be a railway station), and waited for her instructions about how to get out of the inner circle. ‘Phew’ said very Worried and Me, as we changed lanes and eased out of the middle of Guildford. We were a bit on edge about inner circles after our visit to Stonehenge.

Because I was running out of time, I took Very Worried to her depot, and then decided to return directly to the conference castle by train, so asked Francoise to take me by foot to the closest railway station. En route she kindly guided me past a local Curry’s shop, which contrary to expectations sold electronic supplies, and was not even remotely connected with India or saag dahl. I bought myself a nice new adaptor, walked to the local railway station, and took a train to East Horsley, which is how I encountered the Unusual Schoolboy Incident (USI).

As I sat there quietly doing my knitting and observing people come and go at each station, a gaggle of dapper schoolboys got on, and sat in my carriage (I guess that's obvious - I would hardly be reporting a USI that happened in the next carriage!) I clenched my teeth in anticipation of the kinds of conversations I would have to listen to, as I am used to the school boys on the Auckland trains. They usually talk loudly (Mondays are worst) about who they had sex with, how much they drank in the weekend (extra kudos if they threw up or passed out), how stupid their parents are, and sometimes how fast they drove their father's car, narrowly missing getting captured by the local constabulary. But these boys were very strange. They were chattering about some kind of bail out of Greece, and how Greece should not perhaps have been admitted to the Euro-club, though not all agreed, and some had counter arguments that appeared to have some logic to them. They were citing share prices and talking about CPIs and other acronyms I hadn't met, and generally arguing quite excitedly. I decided they had been set a group assignment and were in opposite teams, but as I listened I realised they were having proper conversations about proper things and were actual dapper privately schooled well educated youths who fully expected to be running the country or at least a profitable organisation within it, either before they left school or shortly after. I put away my knitting and got out a crossword puzzle.

On arrival at East Horsley, Francoise kindly guided me past the local curry shop, where I celebrated my safe return and bought some channa dahl for my tea. So it all worked out. Francoise and I were quite sad to say goodbye to Very Worried, but happy we could still walk around and have adventures. I changed her settings though, to make sure she didn't take me on the motorway.

In due course I went to bed and watched a crappy movie before falling happily asleep in my very comfortable bed, even though it wasn’t in a castle.

11th May: Forres to Glasgow

As arranged, Betsy took me to the station. She stayed to wave good bye and gave me a lovely bees wax candle made by Mr Salt, which I stashed carefully in my case in case it broke. The train took me back down through Scotland, a thoroughly enjoyable journey, ending up in Glasgow around 2pm. I took a photo of an old tenement hall near Glasgow - all the windows had been broken, and it was in the process of being demolished. I expect the Glasgwegians had decided they didn't like living in these buildings, which reminded me of the boxes some farmers put battery hens in.
Of course just to test how I would have done if I had tried to change from Queen Street to Central Station a few days ago, on arrival at Queen Street, I attempted to get to Central Station within 30 minutes. I got lost several times, thereby vindicating my choice to take a bus from Lancaster to Edinburgh when confronted with the alternative of changing stations within 30 minutes. Oh never mind, you had to be there. Glasgow is very Glaswegian. The first thing I noticed was a young girl, about 12 years old, sporting a 9 month baby belly. It shocked me and made me feel a little sad – I just couldn’t get my head around why a kid would want to have sex, which I see as a kind of adult activity. Little girls draw pictures and giggle, they don’t have sex, surely. Before I left Auckland I printed several maps explaining where items of interest such as Accrington and Glasgow Eurohostel were. I got out my trusty map of Glasgow (thank you Mr Google) and walked to Eurohostel, which I had chosen as the cheapest accommodation offered through the conference site (I was on my way to a conference in Glasgow). Eurohostel turned out to be not very difficult to find (it was quite near Central Station, so I only had to ask for direction 2 – 3 times), and alarmingly similar to a youth hostel, but I wasn’t a youth. I nervously asked for my room, fully expecting that they would put me in a dormitory, but they had a room set aside for me and within 10 minutes they had figured out who I was and why I was there. I paid the full amount (about £80 for 4 days) and headed upstairs trepidating as I went. It was small, clean, and comfortable, so in all fairness, I couldn’t complain. I propped the window open with my garlic pills, and went to do my washing. I unpacked all the things that had been stuffed in my case for the last week or so, and sorted everything that needed sorted, such as my wallet, the clothes, and my toilet bag. I recharged my telephone, laptop and toothbrush, and discovered I had lost my PDA charger. I had two showers, and washed my hair. It was wonderful. I decorated my room with damp socks, shirts and underwear, then went to explore Glasgow. I found a small supermarket near the hostel, and bought a salad and some wine for my dinner, and sat at my window watching the Clyde River drinking wine and eating salad. Travel is a marvelous way to commune with oneself. By the time I went to bed everything was recharged, clean, and tidy. I even got the filling that had fallen out of my teeth in Forres, and put it in my toilet bag. You never know when a spare filling might come in handy.

Preparing to travel

It's hard to believe anyone will actually read this, but I'll put photos up to make it worthwhile. It's mostly for my boss so she knows where I am, honest, but I'm running a few days behind.
In case you manage to read this first, I advise starting at the beginning, particularly as the end hasn't been written yet. And in case you found this by mistake, this is the travel diary of my recent trip from Auckland New Zealand, through Thailand to London, Bristol, Lancashire, York, and up to Forres, Edinburgh, then to Glasgow for a conference, before returning home via Hong Kong. Phew. No wonder my legs hurt.