Hotels in Middlesbrough
In the end I gave up and booked the only one I could find that looked reasonable on Late Rooms, the Thistle. After my experience on Tuesday with Premier Inn, I felt that might be an idea, but that didn’t work out, as the one in the town itself was fully booked. I phoned the others locally and they were all clueless about how you get to the Riverside by public transport. They just assumed everybody comes by car and you could almost hear the sentiments that only losers use public transport down the phone. Premier Inn don’t even provide decent maps on their site about where the hotels are.
Incidentally, there is nothing on Middlesbrough FC ‘s web site either. After all, all I would need is a cosy B & B. Or don’t such things exist any more?
I have since cancelled the Thistle, as I have found a B & B, which sounds pleasant.
Premier Inn
On Tuesday night, I stayed in the Premier Inn by the Tower. I have stayed in places like this in the past, but what a revelation; a very clean room, a disabled shower, that was a joy to work and had a seat, full Freeview digital television, so I could listen to Radio 5, a compfortable bed, that you could fall onto safely a la Lenny Henry. So the breakfast wasn’t really too coeliac-friendly, but as I skipped it, it didn’t matter. If I’d wanted one, as it was the city of London, there are lots of places to have a snack.In the book, I will be using more of the hotels, but I still haven’t managed to get anything in Middlesbrough.
Travels With My Stroke
Yesterday, I proved that I could undertake simple journeys by myself. Admittedly, I had lifts to and from home, but everything in the middle was done by myself, whether on train, tube, bus or by walking.
Did I have any problems?
Not really!
I thought about it afterwards and feel it could be a newspaper column, followed by a book. I could visit all of those places, I’ve never been before, stay in cheap hotels or with friends, travelling most of the way by public transport.
Yesterday, was the first trip, although I suppose you could could the return from Hong Kong.
I travelled up and back to London, by train from Cambridge, then used the Circle Line to get to my hotel and then used buses to get back to Kings Cross. This would seem a model that could be used for many trips.
My first planned trip will be to Middlesbrough for the first match of the season. My secretary will drop me at Bury St. Edmunds station on the Friday afternoon and then I’ll take the train to Middlesbrough, changing at Peterborough and York. I’m still trying to find a hotel in Middlesbrough for two nights, as hotels and especially near the Riverside Stadium appear to be very thin on the ground. Surely, places to stay should be one of the priorities of a council these days, as it attracts visitors, who spend money and thus create jobs.
The next weekend, I’m going to Edinburgh to see Jarlath Regan at the Gilded Balloon. Again it will be by train, with perhaps a rush back to see Ipswich on the Saturday.
I’ll see how it all progresses.
An Evening in London
After the cardiologist, I took the train from Cambridge to London, where the aim was to have supper with my son, stay a night in hotel and then do a bit of shopping and have lunch with a friend in the morning, before returning in the afternoon.
This was my first trip anywhere on my own, since I had the second stroke in Hong Kong.
As we often, do we ate in Carluccio’s in St. Pancras Station, which can do me gluten-free pasta, if I feel like it, as I did last night.
Afterwards, I took the Circle Line to Tower Hill, where I had a reservation in the Premium Inn.
The Weekends Are The Worst!
After C died in December 2007, I found that the weekends were the worst times. That is apart from Christmas, where I volunteered to help in the Bury St. Edmunds Christmas Lunch for the elderly, who had no family or nowhere else to go. But I can’t even do that now, as I’m not allowed to drive.
So in early 2010, I made a pact with myself and made sure that I always had something to do at the weekend. Often that was football at Ipswich or on their travels and I think I hardly missed a match.
Before C died, wekends were full, but not particularly busy. Usually it would mean a meal out or a visit to the theatre or the cinema, or perhaps the shops in London or Bluewater. We also had four weekends away in 2009.
How times have changed!
This weekend from the time my carer/driver left on Friday night, I didn’t see anybody except the postman and the paper lady on Saturday and my stud groom on Sunday, when he delivered the Sunday Times.
It illustrates so well, our decision to think about retirement to somewhere like Hampstead in perhaps 2012 or 2013. Little did we know what would happen with C’s death from cancer of the heart and then my strokes.
Where I live may be beautiful and tranquil, but there is no shop or pub within walking distance, no bus worth talking about and as I can’t drive, the only transport option is a taxi at £25 a time to Newmarket or Haverhill. Taxis round here are more expensive than black cabs in London. I can afford them, but I object to being ripped-off!
And then this last weekend, the weather wasn’t good and the television with one or two exceptions was complete rubbish.
I suppose the solution is to plan them, so that I don’t get another one again!
Another Tour Company Goes Bust
It has been announced this morning, that another tour company, Goldtrail, has gone bust. It does seem to happen at least twice a year.
What bannoys me is that a lot of people will not have travel insurance, so they will expect the CAA, i.e. all our taxes, to get them home.
Let’s have aaw which says that you can’t buy a holiday without either insurance or the means to get yourself home, if it all goes bust. I have insurance, but it didn’t cover my problems in Hong Kong, so I had to fund that myself.
But why should I have to fund people who make no provision? The CAA should publish how much they have had to pay out, over and above any bonds.
Especially, as most this time were to Turkey, which is somewhere I am very cautious of visiting as it is not very coeliac-friendly, unless you stay in five-star hotels.
Getting Emotional
Since the last stroke, I sometimes get a bit emotional. When people ask how I am and they say nice things, sometimes it can make me cry. But then I’ve been through a lot with the death of C and our youngest son and the strokes haven’t helped.
But then I’ve always been a bit like that. This piece is from the book I wrote about life with C.
There are quite a few people, places and events that have radically altered the way that I think and how I conduct my life. One event was the death of Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia. He committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square on January the nineteenth, 1969, as a protest against the Soviet invasion.
I swore to C that one day, I would stand in Wenceslas Square in a totally free and liberated Czechoslovakia.
With the coming of Go, British Airways low-cost airline started by Barbara Cassani, Prague was suddenly a short flight away from Stansted. I should have gone earlier, as the Velvet Revolution that had ousted the Soviet-backed Communist regime had been ten years before.
But I hadn’t and I regret that.
We stayed at the Hoffmeister, which has all the charm and service expected of a Relais & Châteaux hotel. It was seriously good and from reading reports on the Internet, it still appears to be.
The weekend was our thirty-third wedding anniversary, but I have no recollection of where or what we ate on the seventh. All I do know is that the food and wine was excellent throughout the time we were in Prague.
But it was to stand in Wenceslas Square that was one of the main reasons that we had gone to Prague.
I cried!
And I cried buckets!
Will I ever be able to do the same in Harare, Rangoon and the many other places in this world, where people are oppressed and murdered by the state?
I wrote that in probably about January 2008 soon after C died. Do I feel the same now? Perhaps, I actually feel stronger about the last statement, as there are other places I could add to the list.
I sometimes wonder how C felt about Jan Palach! She booked that trip and she knew how I felt. But remember too, than he was only 15 days older than she was!
Perhaps I should return to Prague? I will only do that, when there are no more demons in my mind, dragons to slay and goals to fulfil.
In other words, I never will return!
Cambridge Park and Ride
It looks like Cambridge are going to change the charging structure on the park and ride for the city, according to this report. If they do charge for parking as well, they will be going against what was said on Radio 5 some months ago. Then, it was said, that those parking and cycling were welcomed and that they took traffic off the roads in the congested city.
I have used the park and ride, usually to go to the centre for shopping or perhaps to see a film. As I have a bus pass, I don’t pay anything, so if they charged for parking, would those over sixty like me still use it. After all, Bury St. Edmunds has fairly low car park charges at certain times and it is just as close to me.
I also use the park and ride near to Addenbrookes and then walk in or take the free-for-me shuttle bus. This is cheaper than parking at the hospital and actually gets you conveniently closer to out-patients, than the car park. If I walk, as I do in the sun, it can also be argued that it is good for me.
If they do charge for parking or make it that parking includes the bus fare, it will be a sad day and except for Addenbrookes, I will cut my visits to the city.
I suppose though, Cambridge has to fund the busway somehow!
Another Problem for the Cambridge Busway
It looks like it was only a small tree, but this report shows another problem for the Cambridge Busway.
It looks like it was only a small tree, but after all the other faults, problems and just bad design, it illustrates, that this busway, must rank as the worst-planned and designed transport project in the UK and perhaps even Europe.
Will we ever get to use it to vitis the birds at DraytonLakes.
The Anonymous Widower 