The Garden Station to Rome and back in 365 days (Overture)

A wise man once said that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." I think it is attributed to Bhudda but that might be a Mandela effect! 

So here goes....

Last August My wife and I returned from Italy on the occasion of our first wedding anniversary.  We were married at the Garden Station at Langley It was a quirky venue and right up our street. However the route which led us to the steps of this venue were long and winding and worth of a series of blogs all by themselves.



It was just happenstance that we were on our holidays at that moment but it was a serendipitous way to round off to the year. 

Whilst awaiting our flight in Newcastle Airport. We reflected on a few issues relating to our journey and I made a mental note to record them and the subsequent turn of events


Let me take you back to a particularly rank January morning 2018 and my wife and I were just enjoying a morning coffee before setting off to our respective work places. On the telly was a early 00's US sitcom called "Everybody Loves Raymond". In this particular episode He and his family had travelled to Rome to meet his extended family. Once out of Rome they travelled to a picturesque Italian village next to a lake. My wife was very taken with the scenery. So much so she hunted it down on the Internet

The Garden Station

The village was called Anguillara Sabazia. And so the die had been cast. We also were to take a holiday in that fair village.

But, and there is always a but in these stories, we came across a small hiccough at this stage. Anguillara, it appears, is a long way off the UK holiday radar. Rome is only 19 miles away and many high street holiday companies were falling over themselves to offer me two whole weeks in Rome itself or even, if I was so inclined, some time in Naples. In fact I could visit many places of deep historical interest along with the capital  and  many more places besides, but not Anguillara Sabazia. They had never heard of it. 

So we delved into the world of online holiday construction. Many people do it this way these days. With the various online tools and web companies out there it is a way of creating a bespoke holiday package. The only advantage of the package holiday, in my opinion, is that in a strange land the package deal will get you from your flight to a bedroom with as little fuss as possible. Well almost. But it I do like the certainty that I will arrive at a hotel/residence on leaving my home. 

With this slight anxiety in my mind (but not my wife's - she does not necessarily share my concerns!) we searched flights. This is an area that can be as simple or as complicated as you like. I used Kayak.co.uk, there are many more but I have used this before and find it easy and useful. It is reasonable simple to adjust your preferences of times, destinations, number of stops etc and it even gives you a hint as to whether it is a good time to buy or not (my hint - ignore it!)

I guess the lesson learnt for me would be to check flight schedules before booking leave at your place of work. I booked 2 weeks in August with  out knowing whether I could encompass my trip to Rome's environs in that time. I felt confidant to be fair. Rome is a quite well known city thanks to his holiness The Pope. Therefore, I surmised, finding flights should be a doddle.

So I had my holiday dates and now searched for appropriate venues. The interweb listed many hotels in the Anguillara area but distances varied wildly and bookings filled rapidly and before I knew it all the closest and the nicest were gone. My next hit on the w.w.w. was AirBnB. A well known site that hosts people who put their own homes and flats up for rental. Hey presto we found a flat slap bang in the centre of town with a view of the lake (Lake Braccianno). Self catering obviously but well within our budget. We loved it. On trying to book it we found that we could only hire it for 10 nights due to a previous booking. Not a problem we thought, a mild shame but not problem. So I leapt in and booked it. And we were happy.

Not so fast lanky one (me) I started to look for flights. The flat was booked from a Sunday and I started scrolling all the various options for travel. Quite frankly I could have spent the day of travel criss crossing Europe on any number of options and airlines. But the issue I was not allowing for was my wife's abhorrence of flying. This was no small issue. Bless her heart though because she will drag herself through airport security for the sake of a decent holiday - but there is a price to pay! This was to have consequences

When I started a conversation about our travel options I was reminded, in no uncertain terms, about her serious dislike of flying and that she especially disliked takeoff and landing. Such was her feelings on this matter it became obvious to me that I could not put her through 4 of her worst moments before we even got to Rome. We must have a direct flight.

Doh!

You cannot fly direct to Rome from the north east of England on a weekend. Nor mid week. Just Monday and Friday! We had the choice of losing a day at the flat or spend two days in Rome either side of our time in Anguillara! Yeah no contest really

I had to crawl back to work and beg the extra days leave.

There was still a choice to be had. Jet2 operated all but 1 of the flights to Rome. I have excluded Ryanair as they go to an ex military airfield which is not connected to the Italian rail network. In fact it was no choice. Once I took into account the cost of getting to all the various airports they outweighed any cost benefit of not going from Newcastle. The flight times were quite good from our nearest airport too. The only problem was the cost. For a flight in August the cost was very similar to a trans Atlantic one. 

At this point I decided to do just what I nearly always do when confronted with a difficult decision - I ran away from it! well only for a little while. I was convinced the price would become cheaper. They weren't going to sell many seats at that price I reasoned.

I was sort of right but also  little wrong

I turned my attention to the accommodation to be had in Rome. As is my want I paid attention to the ridiculous TV advertisements that suggest Trivago should be my website of choice when it comes to hotel booking. It wasn't bad to be fair. In fact I would go as far as to say it was as good as it said on the ads. Perhaps not, but I used it all the same.

The website presents a map of your chosen destination covered in little flags containing a number. The number is the price for a room at a specific hotel located somewhere near where the flag has been placed. My eyes were of course drawn to the flags containing the smallest number, naturally. I was pleased to find however, that Rome was covered in lots and lots of flags. I compared this to London at the same period and could not find half as many, or as cheap! Interesting. 

Still it was now late June and we were flying in less than six weeks so I did not feel in a position to question this apparent mismatch. Trivago allowed me to rate hotels based on visitor reviews and My main concern was cost but I knew my lady wife would not feel comfortable in any old hotel room so I made a concession to cleanliness. I know, I know but i just cant help being thoughtful! I hope my wife doesn't read this. What am i saying I am usually lucky if ANYBODY reads these.

Onwards. Cleanliness and cost (not necessarily in that order) taken account of, position was paramount. The hotel on our first visit had to be within easy reach of the mainline station we would step off. Roma Termini. I will explain. I may have mentioned that my wife is not really very keen on flying, to counter this regular consumption of alcoholic beverages is required before and during the flight. Not copious amounts just a bit of dutch courage but regular dosing. After arrival at our destination the resultant come down of sobering up and relief at having survived can end in a short period of deep sleep. When I was a kid I was a Boy Scout and one of their motto's was "Expect the unexpected" or it may have been "Be prepared" splitting hairs really.

Roma Termini

To fulfil this motto I felt I needed to select a hotel so close to the Termini that I had half a chance of not only dragging two suitcases but  also doing this whilst carrying my wife on my shoulder. The area around the Termini apparently is known as a hotel district so this was not a hard decision and I selected the cheapest..... and cleanest.

For our return I rather fell into the same pattern but for different reasons. I was more confident of not having to carry my wife at this stage but lugging large suitcases through any city in high Summer is to be avoided. And I nearly succeeded but more on that in a later post

I felt quite pleased with myself at this point. A dangerous habit. Accommodation booked! Just get on with the flights. I was right that the flight price did indeed drop. Unfortunately only by £10 a seat. I dived in to make sure we could actually arrive at all this accommodation I booked and the the whole deed was done. 

I do get irritated by these "value" airlines booking procedures. The advertised price in some cases literally just gets you on the plane. If you want to carry any sort of luggage hold or other wise you find fees cropping up all over the place. To be fair the flights are still cheaper than old fashioned scheduled airlines but that is not the point. I chose not to pre book seats which meant there was a risk my wife and I would not sit together. My wife was not too bothered but I felt it was my duty to be on hand as moral support.

And so the prelude is done. All we had to do was turn up and enjoy the moment

Next up : a taxi driver with NO conversation, early morning  drinking (benefits there of) and an eventless journey (No Really)

Brexit, Trump and the World Cup

In an earlier post I mentioned how politicians use public occasions to gloss over their follies, in that case it was a royal wedding. They missed a trick. They should have put the wedding on the same day as the England World Cup semi final and Theresa May could of declared Martial Law and no one would have batted an eyelid. That is how complete the demographics would have been occupied. 
I would say I was in a largish minority that had no interest in the Windsor nuptials but I was in a large majority that was more interested in the England Football teams progress. Whilst mostly white males even my wife got her dander up during the match so we had most bases covered.

I was about to say that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not as good at uniting a nation due to their status as, just about as upper class as it is possible to get in this country. Overpaid, under worked and so pampered it is embarrassing to a democratic nation. However I have to admit that those labels almost completely cover Premiership footballers as well with the exception of the upper class bit. 
In this day and age it seems more national pride rotates around a squad of footballers than anything else. 
It has been a long time since it felt so good to be English though. And don't come back at me with all the stupid things drunken supporters did after the Sweden game. I never said England was a perfect place. 
Many countries recognise how sport can unite a disparate population. Except UK politicians it seems. Although some are content to ride the waves of the winners. It was encouraging to me that where ever you are on the Brexit debate we all came behind the three lions when it mattered.

So to Trump

I don't quite understand why there are people kicking off about his visit. He has many problems as a political leader in my view but he is a democratically elected leader of a democratic country. It is not as if Theresa May was trying to cuddle up to a violent dictator. I guess people have the right to protest.

My nemesis - I shall not name him, he just seems to be able to thrive on any publicity of any kind, was on the telly this week boxing for Trump and all out Brexit. His comments included the notion that all these trading blocks (EU, BRIC etc) were ideologically wrong and what we needed were individual nation states making bi lateral trade deals with other nation states. That's right, lets put the clock back 150 years. 

This may sound attractive to the likes of my nemesis but, as ever, it only really suits the big players. The Lithuania's of this world, or in fact any small nation, have very little negotiating room. Nothing to give and plenty to lose. It is interesting that this idea should come from the US. Currently one of the big players. What groupings like the EU give is some clout. Does the UK have enough clout to go it alone completely. The answer is it all depends

What is it this country does well? At the moment it is financial services. There is manufacturing and oil but it is financial services that largely keep the country on the straight and narrow. But can it provide work for the  entire country? Should it? 

However it looks like the UK Government has bottled it and gone for the sugar free option. 

Not another Royal Wedding

Am I alone in sharing not one iota of interest in the events of 19th May?

I am a Republican and would consign the monarchy to the depths of a Disney park because that is what they are. Cartoons. Just so you know.

I am fed up to the back teeth that all my news feeds about stuff I AM interested in has been hijacked by all sorts of trivia about a couple I have no connection to by people who have no right to enter my cyberspace!

I am cynical and believe that succesive government's use these occasions to hide the fact that they are messing up BIG TIME but didn't the bride look fab!

The news was full of a story about a young girl who survived the Manchester bombing getting a selfie with Mr Beckham. It was a heart warming tale too true.

But the press pick and choose their happy stories.

Just this week I saw an article claiming that the government won't foot the bill for removing potentially life threatening cladding from tower blocks. This is just another reminder to the dispossesed, out of work, disadvantaged and ethnic minorities that your lives are worthless.

I am convinced that Grenfell Tower should be made safe but left in ruin as a reminder to the world what happens when we value certain people over others less fortunate than ourselves

Were any of those survivors invited to the wedding? Or just survivors of politically convenient disasters?

Didn't the bride look nice though?

To Brexit or not to Brexit? That is the question

Straight off the bat I will say that I am what is euphemistically
known as a remoaner. I voted to stay in the European Union. There, I have said it and you all know where I am coming from.
So that said, how do I feel about the process thus far? Should there be a second referendum? Should we maintain a customs union union?
First off I am not happy with our current negotiation team. This is going to be VERY big for the UK. Theresa May threw any kind of mandate for negotiations under the EU bendybus with her election fiasco. It is most irritating to me that the biggest negotiation of this generation is being carried out by a political party that only just has a grip on parliament. It cannot be said it represents any kind of consensus in this country. We will have a Conservative inspired treaty that will be as close to aiding Conservative agenda as they can get away with but all else can go hang. They only represent 40% of the voters and usually their policies benefit a much smaller minority than that. Theresa May should of sought a cross party coalition of negotiators. Although they claim to be a party for choice, that is one commodity that falls to those that can afford to pay for it.
My stance during the referendum was we should either be in (preferred choice) or right out (too extreme though). Every other choice, however, whilst granting us some autonomy, would leave the nation continuing to pay into the EU and adopt all its laws and quirks whilst removing ANY ability to influence ANYTHING! The worst of both world's. I am not in favour of another referendum. The first one left us pretty divided I believe a second one will only drive the wedge deeper.
This country now needs the Brexiteers to really stand up and demonstrate how they expect us to be better off in the future. Just what is it that we can do better for ourselves.