Day 33 - Monday May 22, 2017 - London

Time to move on again, this time to London. We have to drop off the rental car first, then a train to York and from there to Kings Cross. We headed to the rental car place a little before their scheduled 8 am opening, in the hope they might be there early. They were, so we were able to drop off the car and get a taxi into town by 8 am, in good time to get the 8.20 train to York. We were scheduled to take the 9.07 train to York so catching the earlier train just means we spend longer in York but obviously reduces the possibility of any missed connection. On the way to York, our connecting 9.58 train to Kings Cross was showing as being 8 minutes late. Now that we’re at York, it’s showing as 38 minutes late. Not much we can do except sit and wait. We chose this train because it’s the ‘fast’ train (1 hour 53 minutes) and doesn’t stop anywhere on the way from York. Oh well, we’re not in a rush. We haven’t had much luck in the later stages of this trip with trains running on time; very different from Japan, where in our experience the trains run on time, all the time, every time. In Japan, a late train would be seen as a major service failure and cause a serious ‘loss of face’. Here, it just seems to be shrugged off.

The 38 minute delay to 10.36 is now 43 minutes and 10.41. Hopefully, they’ll get a move on as the delayed service to Plymouth via Birmingham is now due into this platform 5A at 10.33. No, make that 10.34 …. or 10.35 …. no 10.36 …. now 10.37 …. or 10.38 …. ok, 10.39. It finally arrives. Our train is now 10.46…… and departing from platform 11. We all trek up and over to platform 11. Eventually the train arrives. Any joy is short-lived as they announce we will be stopped here for a while as they investigate a ‘problem’ that has now been detected. We sit. They then announce that they will be locking the train doors so that they can move the train slightly as they investigate the problem. We sit some more. After a few minutes, we roll forward a little bit. Again we sit. Maintenance men – who have taken off their orange safety vests – go by. Is that a good sign? A trolley finally appears. A lady across the way accosts a passing service manager, wanting to know if they’re going to be serving any food, as she’s starving. Yes, once we get going. Eventually, at 11.15, with no further announcement, off we go.

The train manager then announces that the problem was a flat tyre. ‘Yes, trains do have tyres’ he assures us.  ‘ … and in case you’re worried… ‘ We wait with bated breath to discover what it is he thinks we might be worried about. ‘The problem has been resolved and the train is perfectly safe etc. etc.’ Oh, is that all? I would take it as a given that they don’t run trains that aren’t safe; I assumed he was going to express concern for all the people who were worried about the London appointments for which they were now at least an hour and 20 minutes late but no…. just want you to know the train is safe. Jolly good.

Twenty minutes after leaving, we slowly roll to a halt. A sense of foreboding hangs in the air momentarily but soon enough off we go again. I assume the east coast main line actually only has one ‘line’ so when trains get delayed, the sequencing gets screwed up. As we’re not scheduled to stop, presumably we may have to get past some other train that does stop and the only place to do that is when it’s in a station somewhere so perhaps we may have to occasionally ‘pause’.

The lady comes and takes the breakfast orders. Anne-Margaret opts for the bacon roll, me for the English breakfast. “Would you like sauce?” the lady asks. “Yes please, what do you have?” Anne-Margaret asks. “Red or brown” comes the response. Anne-Margaret opts for ketchup, me for HP; a single sachet of each is deposited on the table.

Eventually, Anne-Margaret’s bacon butty arrives. She insists on waiting until my breakfast arrives as, given her bacon butty is cold, waiting won’t make much difference. Although there are power ports at our seats, they don’t work. The bread basket trolley arrives but still no sign of my breakfast. Anne-Margaret eats her butty. Finally my breakfast arrives – bacon, black pudding, sausage, fried egg, mushrooms, tomato – not bad.

We stop again, this time with a nice view of an Asda petrol station. We then move forward and slowly roll into Grantham – and stop. We sit patiently. The train manager finally announces that the train in front of the train in front of us is having difficulties but they’re going to try and move it on to a ‘slow’ line. We sit and wait. Finally, we roll again, though no announcement is made. I guess as long as we keep moving, we can forego the announcements. We pass through Peterborough and Stevenage, though our ETA at Kings Cross, originally scheduled for 11.51, keeps going backwards and is now 13.46. When we finally alight, it’s 13.48. The one saving grace is that, if the train is more than an hour late, you’re entitled to a 100% refund.

We make our way to the Underground and after numerous tunnels, walkways and escalators, reach the Piccadilly line for the ride six stops to Green Park. Our Oyster cards work so that’s one less problem. The hotel (Holiday Inn, Mayfair) is right around the corner from Green Park tube station. Having been around for quite some time in one guise or another, the hotel is ‘older’; although our room is on the smaller end of the scale, it’s perfectly adequate. Given London hotel prices, we used points to pay for the two nights we’re here – and having seen the (eye-watering) rack rates posted behind reception – am very glad we did.

First order of business is to complete the Virgin Trains refund claim. This can be done online but as the only form of refund it offers is a ‘BACS’ transfer, a travel voucher or a cheque, that’s not going to work. Most organisations processing refunds do so to the ‘original form of payment’ and many insist only on that form of refund. Not Virgin Trains, who apparently are determined to create extra work for all concerned.

I call the customer service number provided if those forms of repayment don’t suit you and finally reach a nice young lady. We spend the next 15 minutes setting up a claim form with a reference number so that I can email them copies of the tickets etc. As we make slow progress, she admits she is somewhat new and still training; when I tell her I’m from Australia, she enthuses ‘oh, I thought I recognised your accent’; no dear, I think it’s you who have the accent and it’s certainly a lot thicker than mine. She’s very nice and trying very hard to be helpful and we get there in the end and I duly email copies of the tickets etc. We’ll see what happens….

That done, we head out the door. We have theatre tickets for this evening at 8 pm. Given that it’s now after 3.30, there doesn’t appear to be much point to going out and then coming back before the theatre so we set off intending to just go for a walk, have a drink somewhere and eventually something to eat and then go to the theatre. As we set off along Piccadilly, Anne-Margaret looks at the hotel across the street (the Ritz) and muses that perhaps we should have stayed there? We make our way along Piccadilly and onwards, eventually crossing Leicester Square. It’s not quite as tawdry as I remember and on the far side there’s a faux Moon Under Water pub (Wetherspoons of course) so we stop for a drink. I’m not sure it meets many, if any, of the requirements specified in George Orwell’s essay but it provides a drink and an opportunity to sit. We move on, heading east and end up in The Chandos, an old boozer with a limited clientele where, when we ask for ‘something red’ the barman proudly displays a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. We opt for two glasses and sit in one of the booths, contemplating where we might go for something to eat.

Anne-Margaret suggests ‘something English’. It turns out Simpsons In The Strand is currently being refurbished and Rules is perhaps rather more than we intend and we may not be suitably dressed for such an august establishment. We search to see if there are any Italian restaurants in the vicinity that might work; we light upon Polpo, in Maiden Lane. Although it’s a chain, it looks interesting so we decide to walk over there and have a look. Rules is in the same street, a few doors down on the other side; I look in the window as we go by. A well-dressed clientele and a top-hatted doorman. Polpo looks interesting if empty. It is only 5.30 so the lack of customers doesn’t put us off and the lure of a £5 negroni during happy hour proves irresistible. The menu is essentially Italian tapas and the service is friendly. The happy hour cocktails come with complimentary arancini and olives and we then work our way through several plates and a carafe of red. All very pleasant and we would certainly go again.

It’s still early but we head off in the direction of the Ambassadors Theatre for our 8 pm performance of Stomp. The Mousetrap is still running at the theatre next door. The box office is open but not the theatre itself so the lady suggests a wine bar up the street, past the Ivy (which is across the street). When we return later, it becomes clear we went to the wrong one (or at least, not the one she was suggesting) probably because we went the wrong side of the Ivy. The one we did go to, Le Beaujolais was clearly a bastion of France, inhabited by what we suspect were a bunch of regulars. Still, it was welcoming and pleasant enough.

When we got back to the theatre, there were hordes of teenagers/young adults outside. We made it in, through the bag search, ahead of them but when they eventually came in, they proved rather annoying, particularly the ones directly in front of us, who seemed to evince little interest in the performance and kept whispering or moving about. The show was very entertaining and creative – it’s amazing what you can do with a bunch of brooms, dustbins, kitchen sinks etc. – STOMP. After the show, we walked back to the hotel and bed.