The key to a horrific weekend

It actually took me a long time to think of a title to this post. There are many aspects to this post… positive, negative… the works. I’ll tell the story.

The scenario is that it’s a mates birthday. He has organised a trip to Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham to watch Day 4 of the County Championship match between Warwickshire and Durham. On the face of it, a cracking idea. But I hasten to add that you need to remember that I live in Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, which is several hundred miles away from Birmingham, with no viable direct means of getting there. Not to worry, a flight to Southampton can be met by a further mate of mine who is also going to the cricket. Given that cricket starts around 11am in the morning, in order to get to Southampton and then Birmingham in time, it meant I was on the redeye out of Guernsey. (7am to you and I).

Mistake No.1 : Working the night before. Part time work is all well and good, except when you finish past midnight, and to allow for such things as packing and trying to shower (even though you discover your shower has picked up a habit of fusing the whole house when you try to turn it on), going to bed at 3am to get up for 530am does not bode well for a wide-awake following day.

As flights go, it was uneventful. Got to Southampton, mate is there to pick me up, find a greasy spoon for a greasy breakfast, and after a few last minute house-moving arrangements are completed, we set sail for Birmingham. A quick stop-off in AmazingBoringstoke to pick up a lady, and we’re on the way to Birmingham.

Mistake No. 2 : Booking to watch cricket for the 4th day of a game, where the cricket doesn’t reach the 4th day. Hence cancelled cricket and a beeline for the pub to watch England Paraguay in the World Cup. However, not leaving enough time to get to the pub means that travelling whilst an England game is on, is actually an unexpected pleasure.

Birmingham is a big place. 2nd biggest in England, apparently. Hence Mistake No. 3.

Mistake No.3 : Relying on Multimap to provide accurate directions to your destination. Being sat in a hot sticky car on a hot sticky day is not my idea of a good idea.

We somehow fluked it to our “hotel” (a smokey little shithole that was totally overpriced. Which reminds me: Good idea No.1 : Use the Internet to book your hotel room. Don’t book direct. Our moderately crap room was priced at £70 on their board, yet we paid £38 via Laterooms.com.)

We took a bus into Birmingham central to try and meet the others. Mistakes No’s 4 and 5 : Don’t get a bus into a town when you don’t know where you’re going (advice of “find the cathedral and walk through it” aren’t the best if you haven’t a sodding clue where the cathedral is) and Don’t try and find a group of people at around about the time that an England game is finishing in a city you have no idea of.

Long story short – we find the others, happy birthday, drink some beers, head back to the “hotel” for showers and changing before heading out for a slap-up Chinese followed by some more beers in a few local bars. (Amusing Incident No.1 : Bouncer at a bar is asking everyone for ID. When asked, I present him with MY doorman’s badge. He wasn’t quite so tickled by the irony of the situation). Beer, taxi, sleep.

Wake up.

Mistake No. 6 : Book a hotel that has a 10am checkout and then go out drinking til the early hours. Missed breakfast in a rush to get out, so get to the cricket ground for the one day game between Warwickshire and Leicestershire slightly hungover, quite tired and extremely hungry. FYI : food provisions in a cricket ground are both a) limited and b) expensive.

Watch some cricket, eat some food, drink some beer, catch some rays. All works out well enough. Except for the part of the plan which dictated I was due to be in London at some point to meet some old school friends.

Mistake No. 7 : Trying to drive from Birmingham to London, on a Sunday, on the day of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Several hours later, both in terms of time and in terms of when I agreed to meet people in London. Having got a train from Croydon to Clapham I then made Mistake No. 8.

Mistake No. 8 : Not learning from previous mistakes. Yes, no sooner had I got off the train than I promptly fell for Mistakes 4 and 5 (above), and attempted to board a bus under the instruction of “getting off where this road meets that road”. When I finally met with my friends for the planned all-day drinking and catching up session… it was 9pm.

Mistake No. 9 : Not eating all day, sitting in the sun and getting dehydrated, then drinking 5 pints of Grolsch in 2.5 hours. At the time it seems like a great idea, but when you get up at 7.30am the following morning for a day of shopping around a tourist infested Central London, it’s no longer so wise.

Good idea No. 2 : Find a bench in Hyde Park and avoid the bustle of London by falling asleep. Needless to say my shopping plans did not go at all to plan, and the best I could manage was a couple of hours in Costa Coffee. Ditching any hope of purchasing anything useful, I headed straight for Gatwick.

Mistake No. 10 : Using Gatwick for a short flight. It’s simply not worth it. Queues here, there and everywhere. I’m sure people were queuing to join queues. (And if you type queue enough times it begins to melt your brain). After queuing for simply hours and getting searched and x-rayed and then delayed, I finally boarded a flight for Guernsey some 60 hours after I left (having scored a maximum of 10 hours sleep).

Best idea : Get home from a long, tiring weekend, feeling disgruntled, hot, pissed off and very sweaty. Go surfing. That cures everything. Job done. Good weekend.

To clarify – the actual weekend was not horrific. The bits where I was with my friends were awesome. The cricket was awesome. The bits out drinking in the evenings were great. It was brilliant to catch up with some of my old mates. But it was all the in-betweeny-bits that sucked ass. Having been spoilt by being only a few minutes from the beach, it made me realise that I’ll probably never want to be far away from it ever again. As I was catching a tube across London, I stopped and looked at people in the carriage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many frowns and scowls on peoples’ faces. Everyone looked miserable, stressed and angry. People were silent. Idly staring into space. As their lives drifted away. Walking through Knightsbridge, admittedly hanging substantially over, I just got a sense of something – that I was’t designed for that sort of lifestyle. I’m not saying I have all the answers, and I’m in no way judging the people I saw in that train.. it just makes you realise that there’s a lot more to life.