From Halifax to Wantage
This morning I have had to get up at 5.30 to go to Wantage, and so I am depressed 
Forget the fact that Babel routinely gets up at this time to go to work; he’s not human so he doesn’t count 
Getting up at this time of the morning makes me feel ill, and going to Wantage makes me feel that life is devoid of all possible hope and purpose. Forget sending people to Coventry, Coventry actually has quite a lot going for it when you compare it objectively to Wantage. Honestly, that place is a godforsaken hole.
Fortunately, however, I have had a nice weekend to lift my spirits. It was rather a spontaneous weekend; I had had no intention of going anywhere at all as late as Friday morning, but then Babel mentioned the possibility of visiting an aunt of his in Cambridge. The idea of spending some time together sounded quite attractive, but then it turned out that his relatives inconveniently weren’t going to be around to be randomly visited at the drop of a hat By this time I had got kinda attached to the idea of having a weekend away, so we spent Friday evening casting around for other ideas, and Babel eventually hit on the idea of visiting Rolf in Halifax 
I must say it was exceptionally good of Rolf to agree to be visited at such short notice. My mother was, of course, none too pleased when I announced an intention of staying away on Saturday night… Well, with hindsight I think she was actually upset, because I’d not given her any notice so she’d expected I’d be at home all weekend… Now that makes me feel a trifle guilty, but at the time I just really wanted to get away.
Even my limited understanding of geography was enough to warn me that Birmingham is not even remotely in the same direction as Halifax, so I virtuously decided not to expect Babel to come and collect me, but to catch the train to Leicester instead. This seemed fair, and we weren’t working to any particular time frame so it didn’t matter what time I woke up. I actually woke up reasonably early, washed my hair and was out of the house before midday. My mission was to get into town, purchase a couple of photo frames at The Works, and catch the train just before one. Sounds like plenty of time, but I had overlooked the sheer volume of traffic on the roads at the weekend. By the time my bus had crawled painfully into the city centre it was gone twenty to one. I had a bit of a sprint to the bookshop, picked up the photo frames as requested by Babel, and was then unable to sprint back to the railway station due to their sheer size and weight. The man in the shop very kindly put them in a bin bag for me, but that wasn’t strong enough to hold their weight and so the best I could do was hobble along with them precariously balanced on one arm. By the time I had bought my ticket, I literally had seconds to spare and I just made it down onto the appropriate platform in perfect time to watch my train pulling away. Bother it
It was, of course, only thirty minutes until the next one, so I amused myself by buying a bottle of water in WHSmiths and playing “let’s try to squeeze through the turnstiles of the public toilets whilst balancing a suitcase and two large photo frames”. Twas fun.
I was suitably pleased when the train pulled into the platform early, but within a few minutes of me taking a seat, my nostrils began to be assaulted by a terrible smell. It smelled suspiciously like sewage, and sure enough within the next few minutes it emerged that there was indeed a problem with the toilet which was causing it to flood all over the neighbouring carriage. An army of people had to get on to help mop it all up, with the result both that the train was nearly fifteen minutes delayed and that the entire journey was accompanied by a foul stench.
When I eventually arrived in Leicester and was collected by Babel I was rather peckish, so he decided to take me to a carvery. This was an interesting social experience, as I had never been to a carvery, but I’m not sure it’s a social experience I intend to repeat. Firstly the service was not incredibly good, although admittedly Babel did get his cup of tea for free after they omitted to serve it with any sort of milk. Secondly it transpired that the only thing I am able to eat at a carvery is meat, and whilst I am very partial to a bit of meat, I’m not entirely sure it succeeds as the sole component of a meal. I did have a nice glass of red wine though. And a cup of coffee. And it was all remarkably cheap
I think eating took rather longer than we intended, and it must have been around four before we finally embarked on the journey to Halifax. I would have been rather excited about driving north, were it not for the fact that it was rather too dark to see anything much. It took about two hours to get to vague vicinity of Halifax, but despite the fact that it is really a rather small town, it seems to have such an exceptionally complex road system that it took us in excess of half an hour to find our way to Rolf’s house 
In our defence, we didn’t have a map and there’s a structure not terribly dissimilar to Spaghetti Junction between the motorway and Rolf’s house. The diversion we did was actually quite nice, because first of all we got a tour of the town centre, and later we drove all the way up an awfully big hill and had a beautiful view back across the whole valley
In the end Rolf gave us some directions and we managed to get there eventually. I’d never been to visit Rolf before so that was in itself quite exciting. I was particularly pleased that he expressed a desire to eat, because Babel has some sort of strange disease of the digestive system which means that he only wants to eat one meal a day. Rolf wanted to go to Subway, which was a further new experience for me because the smell that particular establishment seems to admit has always put me off in the past. I was quite impressed by the idea that you could choose not to have salad/green things/anything which might be nutritious in your sandwich, and opted for steak and cheese which I thought sounded rather tasty. The steak was indeed nice, but for reasons which I don’t understand, something green and nasty had been mixed in with it prior to it being ready for serving. Quite what it was I don’t want to dwell in because I’m sure I swallowed some of it and it might be upsetting :cry: It didn’t taste pleasant at any rate, and whilst I managed to pick most of it out, it was tedious to have to do so I’m not sure I will be frequenting Subway again.
Anyways Rolf found us a pub to sit in and Babel bought me a big glass of wine, although I’m not totally convinced it was red wine; it looked at best cerise We were all settled in for a nice evening, until the pub in question began to organise karaoke Babel and Rolf prompty went outside to smoke and left me on my own to be subjected to it. It was truly chronic, and I was a bit unnerved when the guy who came round to collect the empty glasses tried to suggest that I might like to participate. Luckily Rolf had another pub up his sleeve. I can’t remember exactly what this one was caused, but it was something pretty cool like “The Old Cock” or possibly “The Big Cock”, I’m not sure…
It was quieter at any rate – no karaoke – and I had another couple of glasses of wine. It was fun – I was certainly a lot less scared than when I first met Rolf two years ago, and it was nice to go back to the house and have chance to snuggle with Babel The next morning we had what for Babel would be classified as a mega-lie-in which was cool too, especially because I was rather hungover. That is to say, I didn’t feel sick but I had a headache all day and when I eventually got out of bed around ten I was shaking so much that it was hard to do anything useful. I needed to try and make the bed but somehow this relatively simple task appeared to take ten minutes. Admittedly it wasn’t the easiest bed in the world to make, by virtue of all the stuff which was piled up around it, but still…
Babel was evidently feeling much more awake, because he drove into town and came back with Burger King. I have to say that’s the first time in my life I have ever eaten fast food for breakfast, and it certainly isn’t something I would like to make a habit of, but at that point I was exceedingly grateful for any breakfast at all and I soon began to feel a lot better We all sat around watching the news for a while on Rolf’s shockingly large projected tv thingy, and then decided to go outside and get a bit of fresh air. We walked up a steepish hill rather fast, and arrived at a rather pleasant pub where we decided to have lunch. I don’t think any of us were ravenously hungry, but the menu looked so nice it was too good an opportunity to miss
I had a very nice spaghetti bolognaise with chunks of onion big enough to pick out and not eat accidentally, followed by one of the nicest hot chocolate fudge cakes that I have had for a long time. Babel had a sudden urge to eat prawn cocktail, which I have to confess disturbed me slightly, but I managed not to look in his direction terribly often and not kiss him for several hours afterwards It wasn’t necessary to look at him anyway, because the waitress was very attractive
All too soon it was time to go home It was a fairly long drive back, although Babel was kind enough to take me all the way to Birmingham, and we did stop for a much needed coffee en route. Then there was just time to pack my bag before I had to head off once more this morning. I was writing this on the train this morning; it’s evening now and I have to say that much as I hate being in Wantage and the client is a complete and utter nightmare, the hotel we are staying in this time is a significant improvement on the hotels we have stayed in on previous occasions. This one has free wireless which just about works, and the bath looks very exciting indeed. I haven’t been in to investigate it properly yet, but it seems to have jacuzzi jets in it. Sure I’ll be able to put those to some use… if I figure out how to turn it on
Tags: halifax