Sorry that it's been so long between entries; access has been a bit erratic, and I just spent a fair while deleting viagra spam. I wonder whether we could set up a fake web-log that only spammers would comment to, and automatically block any IPs that post to that blog...
So I managed to get to Cambridge from Oxford; this took slightly longer than I anticipated. (I seem to be spending a fair wack of my holiday in public transport of one form or another; one the plus side, I'm getting to see an awful lot of country-side, and have actually chatted to a number of random English people. :) Got a room at a B&B, and just enough time to shower and shave before my first meeting with Rebecca.
She is a very, very cute baby. Very smiley, happy to be held, talkative (or, more accurately, "noisative"), and generally a pleasure to be around. She vommed on me a little, but in a cute way, rather than "I hope you have a spare shirt" way. I also had roast lamb & roast veges with Jack and Heather, after which I played Flight of the Concords at them for a bit. It was really nice to get to see them again.
Thursday, and I'm off to Wales! Not very far into Wales, of course - in fact, the sign that said "Welcome to Wales" way about 50 meters from the window of the first B&B I stayed at. Hay-on-Wye was really beautiful, but a bit hard on the wallet - I managed to buy about 50 books, plus a set of PG Wodehouse. The majority of these books are winging their way back home as I type - thank goodness for surface post! :) I would definitely go back to Hay-on-Wye - there are a lot of beautiful-looking walks, and some of the bookshops I merely had a cursory dash through. (They did have an internet connection, but I wasn't prepared to waste valuable book-browsing time on internet stuff. ;)
Side-note - one of the nifty features of the town was that there were shelves and shelves of books in the open air of the courtyard of the castle. These books were overflow from various shops, and you could pay for them in a red honesty box at any time of the day or night. The chickens that strutted about between these gently rusting shelves added a certain surreality to the whole affair.
So - Friday I wandered around the scenic Welsh countryside and the scenic Welsh second-hand bookshops, and Saturday I headed back to London for my friend Paul's going-away bash. While I was on the train heading for Paddington, I noticed that I was actually going to pass through Oxford: I very nearly jumped out to wish Ellen birthday wishes in person. Unfortunately, she had a fairly packed day, so I contented myself with wishing her happy birthday by phone (which cut out suddenly because I ran out of credit).
Now, the fact that my phone ran out of money is quite important for this next bit, because I realised, when I got into Paddington, that I didn't actully know the number of the bus that I was meant to catch to get to Paul's. Or the number of his house. Or, indeed, the suburb. I had been there twice before, but both times had been with Paul, so the first order of business was to get some credit so I call Paul to find these things out. This proved slightly more difficult than I first thought, since the place that I was directed to buy credit had closed, so I had to trek to an alternate store... and when I had some credit, I discovered that Paul had his cell-phone turned off.
So - I caught the tube out to Elephant and Castle, since that's where I got the tube from when I left Paul's place, and I remembered Paul talking about the ugliness of the shopping center. And I remembered that we discussed the Brixton race riots while riding into town, and that the bus had three versions - a two digit route, a "1" followed by two digits (which stopped at E&C), and a "4" version (that went from E&C on). When I saw that the number 68 stopped in Herne Hill, I was fairly sure that I was guessing correctly, hopeed on, and managed to find Paul's place with only a couple of stops overshot. So I say "hah!" to those who doubt my navigational sense! Hah!
Of course, it might of been better to get a few navigation details earlier. The party itself was quite fun.
Probably off to Edinburgh today, depending on trains, which I better check now.
Hope everyone is doing well back home.
Posted by svend at August 15, 2004 11:15 PM