Trip report

Some notes on our trip to England last week in no particular order or significance.

• Flew with United. On the way out we had a 767 with the new lay-flat Business seats (no, we weren't in Business, just in Economy Plus). Man, they look good. On the way back it was a 777, with the older Business section.
• Had one of the new Audi A4s as a rental. Nice car, I must say, even pretending I wasn't a Audi fan anyway. Found out after we'd got to the hotel in the second half of the week that the reverse had a sensor for detecting how close the rear of the car was to any obstruction. It beeped quicker the closer you got, until the point where it was a continuous tone indicating that you were about to hit something. Magic. Absolutely and utterly handy.
• Drove up to North Yorkshire where my parents live using the M25, M1, and then A1. I couldn't believe the number of roadworks going on. I pity everyone using the M25 north of the M4 for the next year. Bloody awful set of roadworks. Because of that we came back down on the M6/M40: much nicer.
• We love M&S Simply Food. Best sandwiches on the motorway. Nuff said.
• The buttercups in the fields in Swaledale were absolutely beautiful.
• Because our usual hotel in Windsor was fully booked and since we liked being close to the town, I booked a room at The Christopher Hotel in Eton instead. For some reason they upgraded us to one of their suites, and I must say, apart from the distance to the Long Walk, we enjoyed it very much. The parking was amazingly cramped though; I got good use of the reverse sensor in the car. Recommended.
• We saw a most excellent production at the Theater Royal: an adaptation of Brief Encounter, set to music and songs by Noël Coward. Very good indeed. (To which I add, thank heavens we weren't there this week instead: there's a production of 'Allo 'Allo.  Shudder.)
• Tried Loddon Hullabaloo Best for the first time (it was the brew in the hotel bar). Not a bad bitter at all. Also partook of a Black Sheep Best, an Abbot Ale, but missed out on a London Pride (although United have cans of it on their flights to/from London).
• We hate Terminal 1 at Heathrow with a passion. United used to use Terminal 3, which is better (at least you can get a good breakfast at Chez Gerard there). Next time, we'll have a Prêt-à-Manger sandwich for breakfast — the cafes all serve bloody awful breakfasts. (This time was the turn of The Tin Goose: they were out of the hollandaise for the Eggs Benedict. I had a remarkably overdone fried egg in my "English" breakfast instead. Bleugh.)

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1 Response

#1 Steve Maughan said...

11-Jun-09 6:10 AM

As a Brit from the North East, currently living in the US, I enjoyed your report. One tip - M&S real ales are great. They are not branded (as with all of M&S' stuff) so I thought they would be drab - but no, they are fantastic bottle conditioned real ales.

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