We’ve just had another lovely break in the UK, although “break” might be a strong word for another hectic run around the south east of England.
Just before the break, we enjoyed a lovely night in the Royal Yacht having the pleasure of the hot tub and just about having the weather for it.
On Thursday, we got an unusual lunchtime flight to Heathrow and had a lovely run in the plane along the Thames, bringing back a whole series of amazing memories from 2022.
The Heathrow arrival meant we had a nice short trip to Reading and plenty of time for a lovely drink in the pub by the station, again bringing back many happy memories of our time in Reading.
The next morning we met up with our daughter for a coffee and gorgeous cake at Bakers + Baristas which was a new place to us and very very nice indeed.
The rest of the morning and early afternoon was occupied with a really enjoyable shopping trip, including the surprise pleasure of self-scan tills at H&M! We can be very easily pleased sometimes!
Then off, via the traditional Spoons trip, to Miller & Carter for a lovely steak lunch.
The evening saw the main purpose of this trip which was to see Romesh Ranganathan. We’d booked this months ago and it was very well worth waiting for. Just a really funny night with a comedian knowing his audience really well, and reacting to them, rather than just telling stories at them. It was great.
On Saturday we made our way to Wimbledon, via a detour to a station south of Wimbledon as something had happened on the route we were actually meant to be on. Arriving in town saw us had to the local Spoons, as usual, which just happened to be across the road from the New Wimbledon Theatre for the second show of the weekend – the Stock Aitken Waterman musical I Should Be So Lucky.
I guess we learned from watching We Will Rock You that the plot running through jukebox musicals can be absolute nonsense and while this wasn’t as daft as that one it was still quite mad, but it really just didn’t matter. The music, the songs and the presentation was just excellent and made a fabulous entertaining afternoon.
In the evening we had a lovely Italian meal at a nearby place, which was appropriately absolutely packed out and the food we had told us why very quickly.
All in all this was another really great weekend away and we’ll no doubt look forward to the next one.
Our final full day in New York began as planned with a trip to Central Park.
Yes, it was still -7⁰c and therefore utterly cold, but it was still really dry and as a result quite bearable as far as really cold temperatures go.
Originally, I did plan to run around all of Central Park but ultimately the cold and ice just put me off so we got a metro to about half way up the west side and walked across from there to Belvedere Castle and then down towards the Bethesda Fountain and the Hans Christian Andersen monument.
We then decided to leave the park via the side of Central Park Zoo (surprisingly small) and then on towards first Bloomingdale’s (expensive – horrifically so) then on towards the Roosevelt Island tramway.
For anyone who’s not visited it’s important you understand this isn’t a tramway at all. It’s a cable car across a river. A lovely journey if you ask me though.
On Roosevelt Island itself, we settled down in Granny Annie’s Bar And Kitchen for a couple of drinks and the unexpected opportunity to watch Liverpool score a few premiership goals while another Jersey resident commentated.
We then wandered back to our hotel via the gorgeous Grand Central Station.
In the evening we decided to visit Rockefeller Plaza and it’s surroundings and we had a lovely evening but were quite surprised how small the ice rink looked given others we’ve visited in the past. Still a lovely evening though.
On our last morning, and having had a bit of a false start as their web site didn’t seem keen on selling us tickets, we visited the Empire State Building. We loved the journeys both up and down but ultimately it was a place offering amazing views.
The trip back to the UK was actually quite heavy going with perhaps not as much sleep involved as we’d have liked but it was alright in the end.
At the end of the day, it was an incredible trip and we’ll be back one day for sure.
The first couple of full days in New York continued the winter weather theme we arrived into.
In the morning (and twice more during the trip) we picked up breakfast from a local deli a short walk away from our hotel. It meant a very relaxed, albeit slightly early, start to our days.
That morning we already had an appointment to see the Friends Experience (“The One in New York City”), but on the way there we thought we’d have a quick wander down 5th Avenue – the shops were generally a little out of our price range but still good to see.
Our first stop was actually Madison Square, answering the first question of where the name of MSG came from (sort of – the concert / sports venue isn’t actually that close as we saw later that evening).
The Friends Experience itself was excellent – a very faithful-to-the-original collection of props, scenes and memorabilia which brought back and recreated some good memories from the show.
On leaving there, the snow really started to come down pretty heavily. It was cold but actually it was gorgeous.
We wandered back to our hotel via another Irish (themed) bar and relaxed for a bit before aiming to head for the south end of the High Line.
Except it was closed. We didn’t really know why but suspect it was related to the weather. There had been a lot of snow and it was probably quite icy, but ultimately we couldn’t go there so instead we just followed the line of it north towards Hudson Yards and then made our way back to the hotel via another pub and later a lovely Italian meal just across the road from our hotel.
The next morning we planned to cross the bay on the Staten Island Ferry (which looking back at this now shows me we actually crossed into New Jersey during the trip). We got the necessary photos of the Statue of Liberty, then because everyone had to get off the ferry at each end we had to run around to the entrance to the ferry station to catch the return trip.
Next up, we made our way towards the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Everyone is going to have their own memories of the terrible event itself – mine were mainly of the aftermath as during the attacks themselves (bearing in mind these days were before everyone was always online in some way) I was in a classroom studying for an accounting qualification. I knew nothing of it at all until seeing someone I knew by the cycle park before I went home.
The actual museum was really thought provoking. There was a section inside where the main exhibition was kept more quiet and respectful with no photography allowed and very much hushed tones throughout. The artifacts and debris and personal items found just told a story of horror contained within the event. There were screens showing the planes hit as shown live on TV news and the towers collapse as well. Just incredible stuff.
We popped across the road by the Oculus shopping centre to see more…. interesting… exhibits.
In a fairly diverse turn to the day, after another break back at our hotel we went to Broadway to watch the jukebox musical & Juliet. While the story was a bit mad, it was an excellent afternoon’s entertainment. Great performances, excellent signing and a great atmosphere throughout.
To start our journey to New York we had a lovely experience in the Jersey BA lounge. We’ve missed this clearly. A very comfortable and relaxed experience indeed, and the arrival of chilli rice crackers to the snack boxes is definitely positive.
Chicken salad and champagne on the way over which was really nice.
Chilled out in our hotel which was an excellent start to the week.
Another relaxed start the following day with pre-bought croissants and a not very early alarm. Not much waiting at security meant we were soon at the Galleries North lounge, except as our flight was going from the B gates we were very helpfully advised to go to that lounge instead which we were happy to do.
In there they had a fairly full breakfast buffet which was quite a suprise but most importantly plenty of lovely fizz. A very nice hour or so very well spent.
A nice hour or so within which we discovered the seats we thought we’d moved to didn’t exist so we were moved back to our original ones that did. Very odd but glad we did speak to someone at least.
On to the plane then and having experienced BA Club World a couple of previous times this hasn’t disappointed. Food was good, wine had been excellent. The in-flight screen for me was acting up but I had plenty of podcasts prepared and downloaded for listening so that’s been a minor irritation at worst.
We were through immigration at JFK incredibly quickly and soon onto the AirTrain to Jamaica Station and then Long Island Railroad to Penn Station in NYC.
We got out as planned in the evening visiting Times Square as the night got dark and then stumbled across a lovely British or Irish themed bar which was playing “Sit Down” by James to welcome us.
We popped into Carlo’s bakery on the way back to our hotel, and then we ended the day with a gorgeous bottle of fizz in a room with a pretty spectacular view. A great day for sure.
Looking back to our trip to Athens, we had just the most excellent time even if the experience of travel itself was rather hammered by poor service and delays.
But leaving that to one side on the way out we stayed in a Lovely Heathrow hotel and had an excellent meal there as well at Vivre Restaurant. The food wasn’t ludicrously expensive but was very nice.
Going out to Athens there were more delays, and some weirdness at the airport gate treatment around cases.
We had a good flight though but on the other side it was a slightly odd taxi ride, with the driver having a pretty liberal approach to speeding and muttering while driving.
Our first night in the Herodion Hotel saw us eat in the hotel, and it was a little expensive again but the food was outstanding.
The first morning saw a fair amount of correctly predicted rain. We visited the Monument too the Unknown Soldier and watched the slightly unusual changing of the guard ceremony.
That might we left our hotel, had a walk across the park just down the road, stopped off in a lovely pavement bar then had another amazing dinner nearby. For whatever reason we were given a free brownie and then a very very strong liqueur named mastiha which the waiter took great pleasure in telling us was made from a tree resin. Delicious if you don’t mind spirits generally.
The next day we had planned to visit The Acropolis site. There were simply incredible sights from the top of the site and it was very much worth the visit.
We then had a gentle wander back to the hotel via a scenic route followed by a useful metro ride to try and get our bearings a bit more for the city.
We chilled for much of the afternoon spending some time looking into where to go for the evening. We ended up settling on a bar to the north of the city named Anglais Athens with a lovely roof bar. We did have to climb up a very gloomy and far from glamorous 6 floors of spiral staircase, but it was well worth it. Nice drink, lovely service and views you can’t experience anywhere else in the world.
Then dinner at God’s Restaurant – a place where the staff had been humourously bothering us the night before for again another nice meal. The food here has reminded us how much one can do with relatively simple ingredients just cooked very well and something we can (re)learn from.
We really enjoyed Athens and probably in ways we never expected. Yes, we enjoyed the sites and antiquities, but we just felt a load more relaxed than we did in Barcelona nearly a year ago. We felt we could easily comfortably wander the city – it just felt right. And we’d go back again one day without hesitation I think.
It’s quite a novelty these days for us having a short break for a single event – probably the last minute dash over to listen to the fascinating Johnny Ball was probably the last one – but this trip was for the sole purpose of getting over for my only half marathon of 2023, the River Thames Half focused around Walton-on-Thames.
We’d grown quite some affinity for the town during our Thames Path walk. It just seemed pleasant even if our taste for it was probably limited to a single Thames-side pub.
The trip to the event was fine. The walk to our hotel was a bit lengthy but ok really and that first evening we has a nice time finding somewhere for a drink and then a really lovely pizza.
Race morning was good. The build up was enjoyable and being placed right underneath Walton Bridge was quite cool. Things felt a bit more disorganised right up to the start but it was ok.
I started the run really comfortably, probably far too much so looking back, running the first 5k quickly, the next 5k somewhat quickly and the rest of the event really really slowly. I don’t know if it was lack of endurance or because as the race went on it just got wetter and wetter to the extent it was pretty much a trail race at the end of it trying to dodge puddles. I’ve had slower halfs but not many, but I look back on this now as pretty much a trail half so it sort of stands on its own.
After the run, we had an incredible Sunday pub lunch. A proper huge, beautifully cooked meal, and that on its own will see us back to Walton-on-Thames next year for a 10k.
It was a good weekend with great company and a reminder that trail endurance races really aren’t my thing. I look forward to coming back though.
We pick up this story from another lovely evening in a Gatwick hotel, and the next morning we made our way to Ealing. Given where our first show was the choice of Ealing was an odd one but it worked.
Making our way to our first show of this part of the trip, we arrived at Charing Cross station, and only then realised we are at the hotel which we used as a base several years ago when the two of us completed the Winter Run 10k together in torrential rain on my wife’s birthday. It was a lovely hotel (and a lovely run) which has changed owners several times since so I’m not sure it’s still the same. Good memories though.
Knowing we were early for our show we picked out a spot for a drink beforehand and ended up at a place literally around the corner from the Theatre – the Nell Gwynne, a nice friendly pub in a back street alley but actually felt very comfortable at this time on a weekday afternoon.
The show was Back to the future and we really enjoyed it. Not the best show ever but a really good one for sure, with a jaw dropping ending I’m not going to spoil here. But still looking back we have no idea how they did that!
We had a leisurely scenic walk back to Tottemham Court Road then on to Nandos for dinner and then on to our hotel for the night.
The following morning – a Friday – we had a brief wander around Ealing then the obligatory visit to the local Spoons and then travelled on to our next hotel just off of Leicester Square. We’ve had better hotels but had many worse too.
It was a lovely day in London. I extended a trip to Tesco with a stop at the Moon Under Water in Leicester Square itself and generally had a lovely day.
The evening entertainment was The Play That Goes Wrong. It was a great experience overall but they did occasionally take a joke just a wee bit too far and much too long but still it was great.
On Saturday morning, I headed to Clapham Common parkrun. It was a good run but the course was definitely not designed for the numbers it gets. It would be fair to say it was a bit crowded. On the way back to Clapham Common tube I saw a bunch of apparently grown adults playing Quidditch! As you do.
That afternoon we went to watch Matilda. That again was an excellent experience, but perhaps not the best show I’ve ever seen it was still really good. Very well performed for sure, and staged perfectly. We had a great time.
The rest of our trip featured a wander around Covent Garden, dinner at a place we’ve seen around Leicester Square for probably 20 years but had never previously visited, and then Sunday was quite relaxed seeing us head back to the airport.
This was the end of a really quite an excellent trip or two.
Tunisia was great and relaxing. London was really enjoyable. It was the holiday we needed, but now already it feels like ages ago.
Looking forward now to the next trip to Walton-on-Thames for a half marathon at the end of October.
The history to the booking of this week in Tunisia is more complex than necessary. Next week I should be spending a couple of days at a work management event because those were the dates initially booked for it, except they changed a couple of months ago without explanation so my holiday stood and I missed out on the work thing. Irritating but at least I get the holiday.
Or rather, had the holiday as I’m writing this beside the pool…
… Just about here…
… on our last morning here at the Les Orangers Beach Resort and Bungalows in Hammamet, Tunisia.
One thing we’d never actually anticipated in late summer (at least in the UK) was the weather. Yes, we could have checked but not long before the holiday we discovered not only that we were going in a little rainy spell statistically but actually the penultimate day of our holiday is statistically the rainiest day of the year in Tunisia. Lovely!
The trip over was easy enough – leaving Jersey last Tuesday morning, spending the evening in Gatwick then leaving for Tunisia early Wednesday afternoon, but not before a visit to the south terminal Wetherspoons which I hadn’t been in since early in post lockdown times.
The flight to Enfidha airport was made much easier by not having a third person in our row on our flight so lots of space to be enjoyed too. Service wasn’t particularly great but it didn’t spoil anything.
Relatively speaking we sailed through the airport and passport control, and arrived at the hotel in really good time. It was quite overcast leading to quite a humid evening but the weather was lovely.
On that first night we were “treated” to a show – well, more of a feature I suppose – “Mr Hotel” where half a dozen dubious male specimens got to show off or something. We didn’t stick around but sadly much of the hotel’s night time entertainment wasn’t much better. A “circus” night which was essentially just gymnastics. We didn’t dare try the comedy night, since we’d already found language something of an issue.
Virtually every announcement in the hotel was read out in three, sometimes four, languages, which made every simple message very slow and every introduction to every act really, really painful to wade through. So we’d figured comedy in 3 languages wasn’t going to be great.
They did have a live band night though which was most excellent with a live band, surprisingly, who seemed to fill the first half of their set with bluesy tunes with 2 minute guitar breaks, but the second half with absolute bangers.
Our room was really comfortable with a fridge and balcony facing the sea. We’d upgraded to get that and it was well worth it.
We only spent one day down at the beach in the end though but it was good fun. The waves there were surprisingly high for what looked like an otherwise calm day, but made for an excellent way to spend the day, but ultimately the nuisance of getting very sandy wasn’t really worth it.
The hotel featured a lovely group of cats who seemed to live primarily in a big grassy patch between buildings, and they were clearly very well looked after.
The food at the hotel was very hit and miss. Some of it was really excellent, particularly at lunch time, but some of it lacked variety badly and the meat used often wasn’t of great quality either.
Overall, we had a good holiday. We relaxed loads, the rain actually held off even if it was a bit cloudy some days, and had a really good break.
Couple of important take aways though in the form of anti-recommendations for anyone reading. We bought an Orange e-sim to get mobile data access in Tunisia but it didn’t work on arrival and a couple of messages to their help desk didn’t help. In sprang into life on day 6, about the time I’d asked for a refund on the cost paid. All very dubious if you ask me. I can’t recommend Orange e-sims at all.
The other thing I can’t recommend is Enfidha airport. We were being sent in opposite directions by staff when trying to find the bank to exchange cash, to the extent I think they were trying to make it hard. Then UK passengers were told to go through an “additional security” section following which there were no shops or services at all. Actually, most shops before security were closed too which was very different to the quite positive view you might get if you look at the airport’s website. I came away from the place feeling like we weren’t wanted at all and I’m happy to oblige by never returning to that airport in the future. One to avoid at all costs for me.
So I’m finishing this post lying in bed in London. After leaving the hell hole of the airport we had an ok flight with incredibly slow service again, with a slightly lumpy wobbly landing, and cleared passport control really quite quickly. One nice dinner and a bottle of wine later we’re in a good place.
On then, to the shows of the next few days. Looking forward to them very much!
Ok this post took a few more weeks to write them I was actually expecting, but here’s a long delayed look back at our most recent trip to the UK. This time we stuck to the south of England, originally focused around Oxford to watch a Russell Howard gig but was extended to take in a London show.
Unusually for recent times we hired a car for our travels, having flown over to Gatwick and then negotiated reasonably poor service at the car hire desk, but we got going before too long.
Our first nights stop was in Camberley, a place we didn’t really know a lot about but we picked out because there were a few meal options and most significantly it was close to Frimley Lodge parkrun. Arriving in Camberley soon showed us an unexpected problem. The High Street with most of the shops was separated from the street with most of the pubs and restaurants on, but the Atrium Shopping Centre.
Which was just closing as we arrived. So Google wanted to send us through the closed building rather than the right thing to do which rather counter-intuitively was go around the building.
We got the hang before very long – although it was still irritating – and made our way to the Troy Grill for some excellent Greek food. We really loved it there, and would almost go out of our way to visit again.
In the morning I drove to parkrun which was nice and easy, had a really enjoyable run and a slow drive back as road works just outside the park made leaving it take about half an hour, but no real problem in the end.
Our next stop was the Premier Inn in Hangar Lane in West London, and that was about 2 hours driving away but we stopped off first at the very pretty Black Park, then Asda in Hayes for some provisions for the night.
After a quick lunch and a bit of a rest, we got the tube into central London to watch We Will Rock You. That was one of the best shows we had ever seen. Let’s be quite clear – the plot of it is absolutely batshit crazy – but the music is absolutely excellent and really well presented.
The next day had us back in the car again for another 90 minute drive up to Oxford. Because the gig was a matinee showing we didn’t have ages of time but we had time to try and dodge the rain and do a bit of wandering for photo opportunities.
As for Russell himself, it perhaps wasn’t quite up to expectations – maybe it was just more like watching him on the TV, with fairly minimal audience interaction but there was something just missing about the whole thing compared to other comedians we’ve seen.
For the final morning we’d arranged a visit to Christ Church college which was really interesting and gave us a new view of some of the locations in the early Harry Potter films.
Our final stop on the way back to the airport was one we’d made up on the day. We looked at where was on the way down and spotted Runnymede Pleasure Grounds. We’d last been there during day 13 of our Thames Path walk and visiting again was an unexpectedly somewhat emotional moment.
It was a lovely day and walking slowly through the park with nothing further to be doing made such a contrast to walking through quickly last May but it allowed us time to just think back to what we did do last year and brought back great memories.
This was a trip where not everything went totally to plan but did have us seeing a really excellent show, plus also highlighted that we can stay just outside central London, travel into the busy bit and get back at a reasonable time, which I dare say we’ll do more of in the future.
The last time I posted here was a month ago yesterday. That feels extraordinary. So much of the Great Glen Way walk feels really recent, so for it to be as long ago as a month is really quite incredible. Some amazing memories made.
So a month and a day later it’s time not just to reflect on the Great Glen Way but also where else I’ve been to since then.
It’s actually been a really busy month but very enjoyable.
First of all of course we made our way down from the end of the GGW in Inverness back to Glasgow for our flight home but had a few days to do it in.
Inverness had some entertaining weather to occupy us on the morning after finishing our walk. We walked down to the sea where the waterways office was to hand back the rest room key we’d borrowed for our walk but never used. Then a little sight seeing around the town before a huge shower hit us forcing us to hide in a shopping centre before retreating to the nearest Wetherspoons!
The train down to our next stop in Stirling was a good 3 hours in length going through Aviemore and the Cairngorms. We weren’t really sure about Stirling – there were lots of independent shops but it still felt a bit generic. Although there was, hiding in a small shopping centre, a town dungeon called The Thieves Pot. Very unusual.
On then to Edinburgh where on the first afternoon we had a brief walking tour of Edinburgh before being shown around the underground chambers of the city, and in the evening we had our own self guided tour of the new town. A really lovely relaxed day.
The following day saw us visit Edinburgh Castle which was really a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.
That was just about that for the trip. We had a relaxed start the next day, headed back to the airport and got the plane back home. Again, such a memorable trip.
A couple of weeks later I had a day trip to France. Mainly a shopping trip really visiting a couple of Lidls and Carrefour for food and very cheap wine. Good boat trips both ways and some very enjoyable moules and frites in Saint Malo followed by some delicious ice cream.
We’ve had one more trip since then which I’ll post about another time soon, making some more excellent memories.
Dave's Running Plans 