St Raphael

090216 0100 Wonderful weekend J

Friday was incredibly long and mostly boring, Telford isn’t exactly across the road, and traffic coming back was very snarly. The big dent in the front wing of the red devil wasn’t making me happy either.

However, Friday seems like a long, long time ago now. My brother had reappeared in the early hours, the work he went home to do having dematerialised, and tonight the kitchen is looking quite splendid with all the cupboard doors attached, not a handle in sight except for the three drawers, in part because first thing Friday morning included a high-level discussion on cupboard door-opening design and it has all worked perfectly. I will gloss over the interminable drive to Telford and the heady bliss of finding that the person who was meant to be meeting me there was out sick. At least I got the new laptop and, finally, access to information I need to be able to do my job.

Birmingham is hardly the first pick for a romantic weekend, but it proved to be possible, rugby games included. I decided to take the train instead of driving, in part because I found out a supersaver return is only £3 more than overnight parking at the hotel, a bit of a classic time trip (up) was rescued when Gordon drove me to the station for the connection to Birmingham rather than the lost cause of catching the train I should have got from Aylesbury. All sweet, a good book to read and a text from Mark to say he was on his, and would get there an hour after I did, time to check in and relax a bit instead of the niggling twitch that he’d catch me on the back foot again, checked in and been out for a wander before I even arrived. (He confessed later that he didn’t even wake up till he got MY text saying I was on the train!) Shortly after, another text to say he might have to turn back to deal with a family emergency gloom. I did the decent thing and said it was OK then got back into my book and ignored the internal weather till I got to Brum.

I even WALKED from the station to the hotel, it all looked terribly familiar having worked there for nearly eight months last year, and there was a lovely sense of freedom in knowing I absolutely didn’t have to go into the office. All that time in corporate heaven did, however, gain me four free nights which I have to use or lose before the end of the month.

The porters on the concierge desk remembered me, and were all smiles and hellos, as was Amy on the front desk who made a good effort to get me to change my mind about cancelling the Sunday night (poker on his part and having to be in London first thing Monday on mine)and also made absolutely sure I had my superstar status free bottle of vino sent up. I’d decided Mark probably wasn't coming, so I read the spa menu carefully and decided I deserved the most expensive massage option for a properly sybaritic interlude if I was on my own. Only after that did I call to find out which direction he was heading. Hurrah! emergency downgraded and still on the train heading north, so I celebrated by walking over to meet him at the station. WTF is all this walking business? I’m allergic to exercise!

We got to the hotel, had already established that the Scotland/France match started at 3 and the first I knew we weren’t staying in to watch it was an incredulous ‘what are you doing with your coat?’ So I stopped taking it off and we went watching rugby, drinking (the chap in the England rugby shirt fending off the French foray to take my bar stool by telling them a Scot would be back any second) We won the bar stool but Scotland lost the match. The all-afternoon and early evening drinking seemed quite decorous really, with some more walking about before going to an Irish pub to watch the England/Wales match (England lost), so we were both a bit cross-eyed by the time we got back to the hotel. I spent the spa money on a couple of Johnny Blues for us before we retired to the room to hit the Johnny Black. We did order room service to soak some of it up, but everything had got a bit very fuzzy by then. We played an interesting variation of blind, man, and buff before heading for z's in the huge and comfortable bed.

Not having got a room on the the right floor to use the Regency Lounge for free breakfast, we managed not to use the card to order one. No milk for tea and naff coffee, but we slept for a properly long time in the morning before checking out about one second before we had to. Next on the menu was a liquid lunch on the way to the station in a nice, peaceful, ordinary pub. The poker king was delayed further by taking me to a hat shop where a bright red fedora was duly purchased before he got on the train back to London and I got on the shopping trail.

~ edit/update to follow, probably: maybe