Dragon My Ass To Wales
Another APAT weekend, another non-bink. I’m never going to get to Portugal at this rate. I’d booked all of Friday off which proved to be a most excellent decision. I could have just taken the afternoon but I calculated that if I left work around 1pm and spurred my trusty steed ”Owdeeayfor” I would hit Bristol and/or Cardiff just in time for rush hour.
Not fancying that one iota I did the sensible thing and got away at 11 o’clock on the dot. That gave me plenty of time in the morning for a lie in and general whatnot. I had a decent run for a couple of hours and was at the Leigh Delamare services just about an hour or so from Cardiff when I pulled over for a refreshing brew.
No, just a cup of tea, I’m not that stupid. I had no reason to rush; I was probably no more than an hour away from rolling into Cardiff.
Of course, the ‘best laid plans’ and all that. I’d no sooner gotten back on the road, when I saw the traffic guidance thingy on my satnav app turn yellow in parts indicating problems. The usual morons causing havoc I assumed and sure enough there were a couple of accidents along the way.
However, I rocked up at the Future Inn around 3.30pm which, considering the 45 minute ‘comfort’ stop wasn’t bad. There was a little confusion when I checked in as it seemed that they had two Paul Davis’ booked although the second was with the Welshian spelling.
I had a very comfortably sized room with the usual amenities. A flat screen TV (which I really don’t care about although I am going to have to investigate an HD cable for my laptop…the porn is so much better); kettle and so forth were provided.
I had a somewhat confusing minute when I checked out the bathroom…can you spot the problem from this picture?
Yep…no Khazi! I was about to shrug it off and the maid would have an unpleasant surprise the next morning when I twigged.
I reasoned it out (and vaguely recalled seeing it done somewhere before). There had to be one somewhere…so I walked into the bathroom and closed the door….and there it was, a separate cubicle for the Thomas and the door did double duty as both the bathroom door and stall door!
Anyway, enough talk of my ablutions. I did the usual Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook things and climbed back into the car and drove the mile or so to “The Wharf”. A very nice pub by the old....well, wharves with plenty of outside benches, lovely on a sunny day such as it was.
Not for me though, I crisp under a 40 watt bulb. I headed inside and plonked myself on a nice table which lovely breeze coming through the windows. The beer wasn’t monstrously expensive, about the same as my ‘home’ local but more than my ‘work’ local if you follow.
I knew I would have some time before anyone turned up (if they were, indeed, going to) so I unlimbered the laptop (free wi-fi) and caught up on the work email etc..
Ok, not really, a played a little online poker, drank a few beets and browsed for a while.
Asa McGrath and Sharon Roberts were supposed to be coming down along with Steve Roderick but after a while I just assumed that they had succumbed to the blandishments of the G Casino and gone to blow their wads early on.
Fortunately, at least for me (I don’t know how happy they were about it), Andy and Debjani Duncan walked in and we had a good old chinwag. More beers were consumed and a fairly decent double burger (in my case) was munched.
Eventually the evening drew to its (mostly) uneventful close and I made my way back to the Future Inn while the Duncans could just stroll over the bridge to the Holiday Inn Express.
No chance of a visit from the bear on this night.
I started to write (belatedly) of Cardiff on Saturday and Sunday but with almost nothing of import to report (hey, that rhymes), I couldn't be bothered.
You see....I'm lazy...I accept. I'm not proud of it, you understand, but I get to acknowledge it.
