Some weeks ago I was invited to spend the the weekend in Wales, Cardiff to be precise, by my sort of cousin Benedict. We dicided on using the title 'sort-of' because neither of us can be bothered to figure out the precise (and correct) term to describe how we are related - we just are on some level.
Anyway having concluded I was short enough on funds to prohibit this trip I consigned the idea of being there for his birthday to the scrap heap of life and continued to dull my brain with the mundane tasks that work persists I carry out. No change there then. So a week or two passed and Benedict phoned me up to seek a more direct answer than my plan of just ignoring the invitation or at best sending an e-mail of apology (git ain't I). Needless to say that after a good conversation we hatched a plan which would allow me the opportunity to attend the celebration and so after booking the time off work I had little to do but wait for the 31st Jan.
I woke up early, hitched a lift to the station and purchased a ticket to London Victoria where I was to board a coach to Cardiff and then basically get drunk. Simple, easy, I wish. Arriving at Victoria I follow the signs to the coach area and find the National Express no.509 that I need. I stand there in the cold waiting and watching the driver consume a packed lunch of vile looking sandwichs, he saw me shivering and read his paper. With the coach due to leave at 12.30 I was confused as to why I was still not aboard by 12.28 and decided to ask what the plan was. The answer was not what I wanted to hear!!!! I'm told that the departure area is over the road and that I've been waiting in the arrivals park, now had I taken stupid pills or was I misled by the fact that the SIGNS at the station told me this was where I needed to be. Running over the road I find my coach as the bastard starts up and leaves without me. Even my frantic attempt to flag him down and show him my ticket through the large glass door was met with a shake of the head and tough luck expression. Returning to the ticket office I'm then informed that I cannot simply board the next coach, the ticket applies to one coach only. I'm going to have to pay for a new ticket. £36 lighter in the bank account I wait an hour for the next coach and finally get on my way to Wales, a little late but on route. Relaxing a little I listen to the new Ricky Gervais audiobook I downloaded that morning and watch as london passes me by.
After 3 1/2 hours my legs ache but I'm able to stretch them for a few minutes as we arrive in Cardiff and I call Benedict so that he can come pick me up. Wrong again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 15 minutes he still hasn't found me despite being at the coach station as planned, it turns out the coach had made stop somewhere else and I was miles away from him. Where was I????? I walk into the centre of a town so vile and run down it makes Barking look nice and ask a woman in a newsagent where I am. Confused she (eventually) answers my question - 'Newport'. Luckily there's a train station, not where the sign says but after 5 minutes I find it and have to pay another £3.40 to get to Cardiff. Arriving there Benedict is waiting in the car park with his mate (Leon) and girlfriend (Kim). Panic has now replaced relief as we are running very late for the restaurant.......Restaurant!!!!! That wasn't on the agenda before......damn that's another £15 I was hoping not to spend. Now I wish to amke it clear that I'm not tight but I do need to save my finances for a number of reasons....least of all Chinese restaurants.
Regardless the meal is great but with our schedule having been altered time is short. The comedy club we're booked into locks the doors at 8 and so by 7.30 we're all desperately trying to not forfeit our tickets by arriving late. We get in buy some drinks and relax. The comedy clubs doors then stay open until 9.30 and our first comic doesn't show up until 10 - and I use the term comic in its broadest possible sense. Where it 1972 these guys may have had some cutting edge routines, sadly however being a 21st century citizen I found them about as funny as being told I have terminal cancer by Simon Cowell. So after an evening of fat blokes making 'jokes' about fat women we head off of a wanky bar, consume one drink and decide to head to a nearby 'goth' club. Now we're talking!!!!!!!!!!!! We hail a cab jump in and find it closed. Dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was by then around 1.30 so we walk to Ben's flat pick up some booze hail, another cab and get back to his parents (which is where we were all sleeping anyway).
So we sit around the table have a drink and a laugh before I drop the bomshell. My coach leaves at 11.30 am. By now it was 2.30 and I drunkenly avoid telling Ben that I've had to purchase two new tickets and that rather than leaving in the afternoon I now require a lift in 7 hours. Passing out we wake up at 10 and by 11.30 I'm on my coach, hungover and tired. Despite this however I fail to fall asleep and end up listening to podcasts on my ipod because I can't focus on the book I have in my bag. I get to London and remember soemthing about there being works on the line back to Rayleigh and that I have to get a connecting bus at Laindon. So after finding myself on the wrong train I get off at Barking and decide the best thing to do is just buy a single to Southend which should mean I can just make it to WORK at 5!!!!!!! That ticket cost more than an allday travel card but I'm too tired to care and at 4.55 I crawl into work, staying there until 10. The bus didn't arrive til 11 but Heather and I decided to have a drink of coke in the pub opposite to pass the time. By 11.30 I get to Rayleigh station and am picked up by my dad who has offered to collect me so that I don't have to walk in the snow. Getting back I managed to watch one episode of 'House' before falling into a coma at around 12.30 which is the earliest I've been to bed in months!!!!!!
Still if I had the option of doing it all over again I would. I love seeing Ben and don't get the chance to do so anywhere near as much as I'd like.
It is now 2.30pm on the Tuesday and I still have a headache from the weekend mentioned above.
I have recently started to talk to someone I like a lot. That's all the information I'm prepared to give at the moment
Love and peace
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