Foreign parts

That is to say, a trip to Cambridge, my first venture north of Kings Cross for some time. I had thought years, but checking I am reminded that actually it was just about a year ago that we last went, on that occasion to the Travelodge in what used to be the cattle market by the railway station, rather than the one in Newmarket Road. The former being full up on the present occasion.

Not knowing what the feeding arrangements might be in said foreign parts, I took bread, beef and water with me. Sadly brown bread, which did not show off the beef to best advantage, that is to say the beef already noticed at reference 1, and just visible lower left in the snap above. I suppose I could have got some white rolls or something of that sort from the M&S at Kings Cross (assuming that there was one), but did not care to take a chance on that. After all, depending how the trains fell, I might have been in a hurry.

Bad start in that in the train from Epsom, the chap sitting opposite me, of middle years, slightly foreign, chewed the cud the whole way, with open mouth action. Which for some reason I have always found terribly irritating.

Then a long walk under Kings Cross, this being the price we seem to pay for modernisation. Then onto the platform to find lots more people of middle years, men and women, piling off a train from up north, wearing some sort of pale khaki, combat style jackets. A colour which I believe is favoured by the fire and rescue services. Perhaps this was a herd of headquarters types who had been sent on some corporate hugging event in the hills of Derbyshire. An event which did not involve getting wet or muddy, so it didn't really count. But they all looked terribly busy and I did not like to stop one to find out what was actually going on.

I found the geodesic style roof over parts of Kings Cross quite impressive, far more so than the one at the British Museum, which while possibly functional, is too big and not very good looking. Odd that I had not noticed this one before. I say possibly functional as Wikipedia tells me that these roofs are rather apt to leak: too many joints moving around as the temperature goes up and down.

The train operator kept us on our toes by directing us to platform 6 for the fast train to Cambridge, then at the last minute redirecting us to platform 5. Fortunately, this did not involve clambering up and down flights of stairs or a long walk, as it might have done at Clapham Junction or Vauxhall. Unfortunately, this did involve a tiresomely cheerful Christmas message, strikes notwithstanding. Sometimes one misses the days when the sound systems at railway stations barely worked at all.

Two goods trains and one raptor on the way to Cambridge. And thinking of the low flying sun between London Bridge and Battersea Rise, I wondered what train drivers do when driving into the sun, which must happen from time to time. From where I associate to the time when I drove south down the western side of Loch Lomond, right into the winter sun. Quite dangerous really, but I was a bit younger then. Loch Lomond being the home of the Ardui Hotel of reference 4 where, at that time, they could still manage kippers for breakfast complete with heads, backbone and tails. Grilled, so a touch salty, but not bad.

Next wonder was the pantograph. The contact area with the power line looked to be of the order of one or two square centimetres - so the contact must be pretty good, given the power involved, not to heat up and catch fire. It would be interesting to see one at closer quarters. Bing seems to know all about them, so maybe tomorrow I will take a look.

On arrival at Cambridge, no taxis on the rank, but one very loud and self important businessman explaining to anyone who would listen how awful this was. I forget whether he had a pop at the council while he was at it, but he did offer me a jelly baby. When I eventually got into a taxi, I had  a cheerful driver who knew all about the public houses of my youth. He also knew about the Duke of Argyll, which we agreed might have been OK at around 17:00, but maybe not at around 23:00.

A word of warning to the unwary: a lot of saloon-format taxis might have very fancy dashboards, with lots of lights, dials and screens, but very little in the way of leg room in the back. Must learn to get into the front.

Some time later, I found my way to the Newmarket Road Travelodge, set in a sea of closed shops and public houses, busy roads and large business parks. Bar area in the hotel firmly shut at lunchtime - for which one can't blame them, there not being apt to be much trade at that time - but no-one objected to my taking my sandwiches there while I waited to check in.

The menu looked quite like a Wetherspoon's menu, or indeed that of tens of thousands of public houses up and down the land. And I learned about something called Hasselback potatoes, which I now know to be the latest take on baked potatoes, possibly invented in Sweden and having taken half a century to make it across the North Sea. I shall have to check up on them in the Epsom branch of Wetherspoon's.

The Duke of Argyll is long shut up and converted into desirable flats, but some time later still the Empress was still up and running and did not seem to have changed much since I was last there, probably more than five years ago, possibly as many as ten. Apart from exuberant Christmas decorations which I did not remember.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/french-beef.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/cold-snap.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-stroll-in-cambridge.html.

Reference 4: https://ardlui.com/.