Bon Voyage - or not as the case may be!

Well, here we are, sat in the terminal for the Euro Tunnel, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. It's an odd place to be sat, to spend the Friday evening before Christmas, but here we are, waiting patiently - or not so patiently - for our train to whisk us away under the sea (this is, by the way, the only place you should sing the Bobby Darin classic with slightly altered words; altogether now 'somewhere, below the sea...' ) Now, normally we're pretty good at arriving in time to drive straight to loading and then on to the train and this evening was, we thought, no exception. We made out way down the M11 and round the M25 without any hold ups. We negotiated the M25/M20 roadworks with success and merrily drove down the M20 to the tunnel checkin. And there we came unstuck. We had a ticket, purchased many months ago, we were on time, but the computer - in its best Little Britain voice - said No. On investigation by a nice young lady with a sexy French accent - how do they make the English language sound so damn sexy? They can be 200 kg of hairy muscled gorilla French woman and yet the right words in that accent and I go all weak at the knees. I blame my Aunt - anyway, on investigation it was discovered that my darling better half had, and there's no polite way of saying this, totally fucked up. We had a nicely purchased return ticket that read 'Calais-Folkstone, Folkstone-Calais'. Yep, she'd booked the wrong directions!

Off to the information desk we were sent to discover that every train was full so we'd have to wait several hours and that all trains were running late as well by 90 minutes. Oh joy. Now, here I sit, tapping away at the keyboard, tired, bored and with another 2 hours to go before the train ride and the start of our 3-4 hour drive to Germany. And to top it all off, the car is ever so slightly broken. It's leaking coolant, slowly but surely. The garage had it for 3 days during which time they failed to fix the fault but did eventually trace the problem to the head gasket which they quoted us, wait for it, over a thousand pounds to fix!!! We fell over too.

Suffice to say, we said no thanks and now, against their advice we're driving to Germany for Christmas. The car is booked into a German VW dealer and no doubt it will be fixed quicker and cheaper than in the UK. Plus we'll be wining and dining until we explode which is alot better than staying at home with an empty fridge and a freezer that contains nothing but fruit pies and crumbles. Damn, now I'm hungry again. Perhaps it's time for the traditional English restorative: a cup of tea. Good job the bar's still open even though it's 1am!

Tune in later to see if we made it in time for breakfast or whether we exploded somewhere in Belgium (which would be the most exciting thing to have happened there all year!). Wish us luck!

The rainy streets of York

Well, here's a shock - a blog entry that's not being done weeks after the fact! This entry is less than 2 weeks after the events and, that alone, is worthy of a blog entry. You never know, this could be an indication of things to come. But I doubt it. Christmas is coming and we're off to Germany, but more about that later.

Let me take you back in time (please insert your favourite time traveling noise into the blog - mine would have to be from Doctor Who and be the sound of the Tardis dematerialising. Also feel free to add your own glamourous assistant for the duration of the trip - Catherine Tate need not apply but given that it's the Christmas special soon, Hello Kylie! Be careful not to re-materialise too soon or you'll end up in Sunday and a trip in a different time machine back several centuries and, as all shed physicists know, landing one time machine in another is never a good move. Trust me, jelly is not a good shape for a human. Not a bad shape for a jelly especially if it's lime flavoured).

We're in York, 2007 - so if you're any later than that get your arse back to this year - It's December - so if it's sunny where you are, you're still too far back in time. Come on, get with it or I'll revoke your time travel license and make you take Time Taxi's instead - It's the 7th and we've just arrived in York station. It's a glorious Victorian station that needs steam engines and loud noises to make it really come alive but instead we've got one of the last GNER trains to disembark from which doesn't come with steam. Rail travel is so unromantic these days. Unfortunately, taking pics is the last thing on my mind so you'll just have to try and imagine it yourself. The huge iron roof arches over platform, glass reflecting the weak winter sunlight and making the whole area bright and welcoming. The crowds of travelers, clutching bags and pulling suitcases, made their way towards the stairs and the walkway's that cross high over the platforms and tracks, scaling them like a rampaging horde of army ants who'd had too much to drink the night before and now someone was going to pay! and surging towards the exit to storm the ancient city that is York. We ambled. We like to be different. And then realised that none of us had actually printed a map of where the hotel was located. A quick dive into the Tourist office, a whizzy bit of slight of hand and we emerged, furtively clutching a What's On guide (including a street map of the city), only to discover it was free anyway. Damn. Looks like Fagin has nothing to worry about quite yet. Mind you, Inga makes a cute Artful Dodger...wonder who's going to play Oliver Twist?

We left the station and followed the signs for the city centre. Before us was a bloody great wall, behind us was the station, next to us was an expensive hotel that had taken one look at IFM (Inga's company who were paying for this particular shindig) and declared 'there's no room at this Inn for people like you', so we were staying within the walls instead - not as high class, but far more prestigious and near the river. York is famous for its Minster which leaps out at you as soon as you pass through the walls (no, not literally, we're not ghosts - but more on them later too - but through a convenient hole they made for the traffic to use which was probably not more than 1 horse power in those days). Pow! The Minster hits you right between the eyes and demands your attention (it's not very polite in some aspects despite its religious credentials. Then again, religion has been responsible for some of the bloodiest wars in history so being politely thumped is better than being impolitely hung, drawn, quartered and having the bits stamped on afterwards). We admired the view and let it bask in our gaze until a different bunch of tourists distracted its attention and we could make good our escape.

A few minutes walk saw us find the hotel which was a weird not very hotel shaped building. It was a combination of old houses and new extensions that joined them all up (with an attached health club full of thin people exerting themselves in boring ways, but we're not going to talk about them as they were all ugly too). The Lady Anne Middleton hotel was very nice, very efficient and had a sign saying 'We speak German' in German. Inga felt right at home so we booked in. Or rather, didn't, in our case as we had arrived too early for our room. Instead we dumped our bags in their secure room and then I did what all good men do - I grabbed the Patrica's husband Sebastian (not in that way - behave!) and we legged it to the pub. The girlies had to go and join the Quartley meeting and do a presentation (I say they had to do a presentation, what I really mean is Inga did it).

York is split by a river and was always an important crossroads and settlement in the North of the country, which is all the history you get for now. What this means is that it has a fair few hostelry's and a quayside that used to be warehouses and is now the lurking place of several of the afore mentioned hostelry's. We had some beers and then wandered the streets of York getting in a sneaky bit of sightseeing before the festivities of the evening began.

Eventually we made our way back to the hotel to meet up with all the others and prepare for the IFM big night out. And what a night out that was to turn out to be!