Chester and the Magical Mystery Tour
Apologies that is arriving to lj so late but I my bloody hand is acting up again and typing is labourious at best. That is also why I'm breaking it into manageable chunks.
I have never been a fan of early rising and 6.15 for a form of transport seem entirely unreasonable to me and yet I did it, I got up and got pinky and got to the ferry before they'd even opened the rather grandly titled check in desk. It's amazing how laid back going on the ferry was in comparison to airports. I thought I would have to plead with the nice lady to allow my wheelie case on with me as it contained My Dress but actually she just looked at our tiny cases and waved us on. It was a lovely sunny morning and the sea was like glass, once again I was amazed that after an hour of moving you can still see lots of land on the cruise ferry but we were very comfortable, our one small quibble being that the fried breakfast was extortionately expensive.
Basically everything that is usually unpleasant about travel to the UK was removed and I am delighted that we are going by ferry on our honeymoon (just to clarify when I say our honeymoon I am not in fact marrying pinky, I meant the other "our", the one with The GC in it, afaik pinky isn't coming on the honeymoon, although after The Chester Experience I think you'll see why I have doubts). Once we got to Holyhead we had about an hour to kill before we got the circuitous train to Chester. Why did they build the train track in Wales in a spiral? I presume mountains is the answer but possibly it could also be mines, anyway if you wanted to get to Maesteg the train's destination I'm sure there is a quicker way to go about it. Train was lovely. We went through Rhyl where my father spent his seaside holidays as a boy and has only ever been a funny name to me before and Colwyn Bay which looked lovely.
Chester is picture-postcard top-of-a-chocolate-box pretty in the main, but with so many places not when approached on foot from the train station. And our hotel was bloody hard to find too, it involved underpasses but we got there. Pinky booked us in and insisted I didn't listen, from which I concluded that she had booked us in for beauty treatments in the spa. But I was wrong! See how I heightened the tension there? Thought you'd enjoy that. You thought I'd never stop waffling about public transport and get to the good stuff and then, with a simple sentence fragment I wratchted things up to Hitchcockian levels, you never know what I'll do next.
We were quite hungry by this stage of the late afternoon and thought the bar would serve food. It didn't but it did serve over twenty guest ales and one guest cider. A couple half pints each and some tasting glasses of different ales later we realised that the bar did not serve food at this hour but we were almost in time for early dinner. A local indian sourced from the handy barman we set off in the freezing cold to walk along the canal to get to it. Food was lovely, they didn't serve any guest ales though so we were forced to make do with cobra. Then a return to the hotel bar, our now beloved guest ales and a jazz band and there we shall draw a veil over the activities of the evening, apparently pinkymonster wants to use in her speech so I won't go in for future copyright infringement. The author has asserted her moral rights.
The next morning over a very nice breakfast that was only short on marmalade la pinky informed me that I could have my surprise in half or full portions. I opted for half porrtions. So she told me we were checking out of the hotel today and she was whisking me off. All my guesses revolved around things I really hoped we weren't doing like paintball or other such gruesome activities. I was underestimating her.
We hurriedly packed and trotted off to purchase foundation garments. Chester is a really pretty little city, even the shopping streets are tasteful. Well at the shop we met Ailbhe our beautiful assistant and the spending spree began. Luckily we got a large changing room to ourselves so it was twice the fun! We were very successful and I bought so much stuff that I had to say the word trousseau to myself several times in order to justify it. Bringing The Dresses was inspired and essential. Thank God neither of them were too complex to put on or might have missed our train. I just put it all in a drawer of it's own the other day and had to say Troussear Trousseau to myself yet again to stop myself hyperventilating. I now finally have a bottom drawer.
We had a look at the amphitheatre (adds to list of personal amphitheatres) and a lovely lunch and then back to the train station to head for parts unknown on my part.
Tune in next time when you'll hear about:
-Black Country accents
-The Big Surprise!
-Hysterical screaming at a Welshman
-Someone who can out-talk both Pinky and I put together
-Knitting needles and conditioner and a mysterious not stranger to the rescue
-Me choosing salad on a menu
I have never been a fan of early rising and 6.15 for a form of transport seem entirely unreasonable to me and yet I did it, I got up and got pinky and got to the ferry before they'd even opened the rather grandly titled check in desk. It's amazing how laid back going on the ferry was in comparison to airports. I thought I would have to plead with the nice lady to allow my wheelie case on with me as it contained My Dress but actually she just looked at our tiny cases and waved us on. It was a lovely sunny morning and the sea was like glass, once again I was amazed that after an hour of moving you can still see lots of land on the cruise ferry but we were very comfortable, our one small quibble being that the fried breakfast was extortionately expensive.
Basically everything that is usually unpleasant about travel to the UK was removed and I am delighted that we are going by ferry on our honeymoon (just to clarify when I say our honeymoon I am not in fact marrying pinky, I meant the other "our", the one with The GC in it, afaik pinky isn't coming on the honeymoon, although after The Chester Experience I think you'll see why I have doubts). Once we got to Holyhead we had about an hour to kill before we got the circuitous train to Chester. Why did they build the train track in Wales in a spiral? I presume mountains is the answer but possibly it could also be mines, anyway if you wanted to get to Maesteg the train's destination I'm sure there is a quicker way to go about it. Train was lovely. We went through Rhyl where my father spent his seaside holidays as a boy and has only ever been a funny name to me before and Colwyn Bay which looked lovely.
Chester is picture-postcard top-of-a-chocolate-box pretty in the main, but with so many places not when approached on foot from the train station. And our hotel was bloody hard to find too, it involved underpasses but we got there. Pinky booked us in and insisted I didn't listen, from which I concluded that she had booked us in for beauty treatments in the spa. But I was wrong! See how I heightened the tension there? Thought you'd enjoy that. You thought I'd never stop waffling about public transport and get to the good stuff and then, with a simple sentence fragment I wratchted things up to Hitchcockian levels, you never know what I'll do next.
We were quite hungry by this stage of the late afternoon and thought the bar would serve food. It didn't but it did serve over twenty guest ales and one guest cider. A couple half pints each and some tasting glasses of different ales later we realised that the bar did not serve food at this hour but we were almost in time for early dinner. A local indian sourced from the handy barman we set off in the freezing cold to walk along the canal to get to it. Food was lovely, they didn't serve any guest ales though so we were forced to make do with cobra. Then a return to the hotel bar, our now beloved guest ales and a jazz band and there we shall draw a veil over the activities of the evening, apparently pinkymonster wants to use in her speech so I won't go in for future copyright infringement. The author has asserted her moral rights.
The next morning over a very nice breakfast that was only short on marmalade la pinky informed me that I could have my surprise in half or full portions. I opted for half porrtions. So she told me we were checking out of the hotel today and she was whisking me off. All my guesses revolved around things I really hoped we weren't doing like paintball or other such gruesome activities. I was underestimating her.
We hurriedly packed and trotted off to purchase foundation garments. Chester is a really pretty little city, even the shopping streets are tasteful. Well at the shop we met Ailbhe our beautiful assistant and the spending spree began. Luckily we got a large changing room to ourselves so it was twice the fun! We were very successful and I bought so much stuff that I had to say the word trousseau to myself several times in order to justify it. Bringing The Dresses was inspired and essential. Thank God neither of them were too complex to put on or might have missed our train. I just put it all in a drawer of it's own the other day and had to say Troussear Trousseau to myself yet again to stop myself hyperventilating. I now finally have a bottom drawer.
We had a look at the amphitheatre (adds to list of personal amphitheatres) and a lovely lunch and then back to the train station to head for parts unknown on my part.
Tune in next time when you'll hear about:
-Black Country accents
-The Big Surprise!
-Hysterical screaming at a Welshman
-Someone who can out-talk both Pinky and I put together
-Knitting needles and conditioner and a mysterious not stranger to the rescue
-Me choosing salad on a menu