Walk to the JW, Taxi to the Airport, Flight to Chicago, Airport Transit to T5, Long-Ass line for Security, Flight to Dublin, Flight to Heathrow, Train into Paddington, Tube to Marylebone, Train to Princes Risborough, Rail Replacement Bus to Aylesbury, Walk to the Travelodge.
Gave myself plenty of time with an afternoon flight so I was able to take a leisurely breakfast at Cafe Patachou, wander around the almost entirely Gen Con free convention center, and check out a smidge before noon. Patachou isn’t so much a tradition for me as it is a very nice, chill place to have breakfast. It’s absolutely rammed during Gen Con, so I like to visit when it’s quiet, and I can mooch back & forth to the coffee, take my time, and know that I’m not taking up a table they could be filling with more patrons.
I actually set an alarm this time, so that I’d have enough time for a leisurely start to the day. Hotel restaurant was running short-staffed, so things were a little chaotic at times.
Checkout, like check-in, was done by a kiosk, so I didn’t have to do anything more than push some buttons and drop my room key card in a box.
I left Blackpool on the Friday & made it to Aylesbury in pretty good time thanks to a lucky connection at Preston where the train arrived as I got to the appropriate platform.
The reason for the trip was a birthday BBQ “Sausage Party” for Becs on the Saturday, with the idea that people would bring weird sausages. I managed to miss the fancy dress element, but was reminded in time.
Maybe wires got crossed, or maybe the folks I was with just ran with a theme, but that theme was ’90s. It’s slightly worrying that all I needed to do to hit a 90s theme was out on a bandana & tie my flannel shirt around my waist.
I didn’t take any pictures of the party, but I did take one of a cafe breakfast that day, so here it is
It was a fun day. 🙂
The very next day I went to Aberdeen, which was a mistake in terms of planning. Should have booked a sleeper trip instead for a few days later so that I could enjoy the weekend, instead of leaving very early to get a train to London so that I could not quite run but certainly walk at my best speed to get to the unreserved carriage in the hope of getting a seat
The booking websites were uncooperative, and I ended up with a ticket to Aberdeen but no seat reservation, which isn’t ideal. I got a bit lucky when it came to boarding; A family with a million suitcases was blocking the closest door to the unreserved carriage, so I went to the other one. Turns out only half of the carriage was unreserved, but my route let me walk through the reserved bit to get to the unreserved, where there were still seats free because nobody could get to them through the million-suitcase-family.
I’m probably tempting fate by saying this, but my packing process feels like it’s getting faster. Some of that will be because of the things which never made it out of the bag(s) in the first place, but I’m thinking that a bunch of it is due to having a designated spot for (most) things, so it’s just a case of findings the thing & stowing it, no decision making required.
For a long time I’d been doing the much-advised “tightly roll all your stuff to save space” thing, but after some experimenting, I’m not sure that it’s as generally applicable as travel blogs/vlogs/instagrammers like to think. Recently I’ve gone with “fold until it’s roughly the same dimensions as the bottom of the compartment”, which then lets me stack things and let the weight of the stuff above compress it for me. To be fair, this is for things like Cargo Shorts, Sweatpants, Hoodie, … Not the things I’d need regular access to, so it doesn’t matter much if I need to move something to get at it. ( The Big Black Bag is a sort of front-of-the-top loader, a squat rectangular shape where the front ⅔ unzips )
Didn’t sleep amazingly well on Friday or Saturday nights, so my precautionary 2 hours before alleged checkout alarm was very useful indeed. Most of the packing up was done the night before, so I could do the second to last bits (any clothing items I’m not wearing, laundry, anything in any room of the place gets moved to the bed) before wandering out to get some breakfast from the amusingly named Boston Tea Party¹.
I was impressed. They had a nice location, on a corner jutting into a square, so they could have outside tables and awnings. Good food, and one of the “scan the code to order at your table” systems, which are great for a low-brainpower morning.
In theory I was supposed to check out by 10, but since the owner had basically said “please be out by the time the cleaning lady arrives at 12”, I feel that my 10:15ish departure was OK. ( A bunch of that was just putting things back roughly where they belonged; unfeasible number of cushions back on the sofa, weird embroidery cushions on a chair and not the floor, chair by the desk and not in the bedroom fireplace to keep the ghosts at bay, … )
I made a stop a the pinkest & most floral cafe I’ve ever seen; Sweet Little Things. It’s like drinking coffee in a very fancy cupcake.
As a side note; Is Bath one of those Hen/Bachelorette party cities? There was a group who showed up while I was there, but then went to one of the other locations in Bath, possibly because of size of group or whether they were doing actual breakfast; The location I was at had apparently called the other one to let them know a group was incoming .
Then there was another smaller group I passed on the way to the station, and I’m pretty sure I saw a few more during the week.
And then to the station.
It got oddly crowded on the platform after the photos were taken, I’m told due to there being no trains yesterday because of rail strikes. As a stroke of luck I’d noticed that the Great Western Railway app had a ‘how full is this carriage’ indicator on their live train information screen; It had been blank earlier, presumably because the train wasn’t running yet, but had now updated to show that the middle of the train was full ( I’m assuming it’s showing reserved seats, not actual people per carriage ), so I moved myself to the far end of the platform to line up with the back of the train.
Surprisingly, it worked, and the last carriage isn’t full. I don’t think there are any empty doubles, but I’ve not got anyone sitting beside me, and I can see some empty seats around. Meanwhile, much as with the trip out here, they announced that they couldn’t do the cafe cart service because they can’t move through the train.
Maybe it’s just a polite fiction, and there is never a cart?
¹ Who are a chain, maybe a franchise, that I’d never heard of prior to going to Salisbury. Looking at a map, I think I can see why;
