Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2014-11-28 18:53:50 - Graham Ellis
When I'm away, I try to take in / visit places I wouldn't normally get to - see a little bit of some towns otherwise missed as I speed past, and see how a different half lives.
This week, I stayed in a cottage just up a Welsh Valley - up on the hillside, out of the town, in the trees. The first heavy frost of the winter one morning, the sound of rushing water to be heard with little else. The 'burbs of a town, around 600 feet below and in the valley, are cheek by jowl terraced housing with in places more cars than can be comfortably accommodated ... and walking down the valley and over the river you come to the town. Few eateries around where I was staying, so I went down to the town on one of the evenings, somewhat against local advise at it was suggested that it gets a bit rough after dark.
As early as 18:30, there were a number of people in the town who were unsteady on their feet, and I suspect that the reason's the shop above, and other places selling similar products. Some were equipped with blankets and clearly in for a long evening. I popped into Subway for a sandwich, and a couple (two, you note, not one) of policemen came in - clearly they feel that have to patrol in pairs. Sad really, as it looks like it could be a nice town too.
Up on the hillside is lovely, great little B&B and going back for leisure I would certainly look to stay there again. But alas they don't take dogs. For business, good too but about 5 miles from my place of work, and those five miles were traffic-jam heavy, major roads but major queues too and I can't have averaged more that 15 m.p.h. each morning. There's a local station too - just a 10 minute hop on the train, but a service with an hour's gap that would leave me 55 minutes early or 5 minutes late (if I was lucky!) ... so that's not on. I confess I didn't look at the bus, but I would be amazed if there was one bearing in mind the comments of my delegates.
Yes, I'm doing more training there - regrettably, I'm anticipating staying in the only hotel - a well know chain which actually I like, but who have raised their prices in the last year or two beyond my usual budget, for coming weeks. At least I know what I'll get; "excellent" would be a surprise, but I can trust it to be on the good side of mediocre. And at around 600 yards from where I'll be training, I can walk in and out. I may even be able to take the train over and back to Wales and not bother with a car, as I find more and more the roads become clogged and driving becomes less and less fun. And Im fresher to train too.
