The road to hell

If there is a hell and I end up in it, my punishment will be to travel with a tight schedule. The number of times I dream of taking a taxi to Heathrow and discovering I have forgotten my passport or arrived the wrong airport or both!

So, today's trip back to Kettering wasn't something I looked forward too. In short we made it back, but carting the damn luggage from pillar to post was an unforgettable experience.

The GNER Wendsleydale cheese sandwich which was glued together with some kind of generic cheese paste (listed in the small print that you could only reasonably read after you had purchased it) was also unforgettable.

That said, when we got into St. Pancras station, someone, who perhaps had been on a customer service course, actually helped carry our bags, got us on a train in good time, took note of the coach we were in and phoned ahead to tell someone at the Kettering to meet us and help us with our bags. We were utterly amazed. In the UK it's the individual people who take the initiative to help and when they do it's utterely wonderful and surprising.

On the train to Kettering, relaxed and inspired by the whole helpful experience I phone the hotel to ask if they could use their nice shiny silver minibus to pick us up. It had stood resplendant and unused in the carpark during our previous stay as the hotel hadn't had anyone capable of driving it to the station 2 miles away "so early in the morning" when we had asked.

"We are arriving at 6:00pm. Could someone pick us from the station and take us to your hotel so we can check back in?"

"I'm sorry sir, we don't have anyone qualified to drive the minibus at that time."

I wondered when exactly they did actually have someone qualified to drive the minibus? Perhaps during a full moon, when Venus was in decline during the ides of October???