Holiday Of A Thousand Days.

Third day in London and I had to leave London.

Hever Castle has been on my list for quite a while, but it just seemed like quite a hassle.  I actually considered getting a room in their guest accommodation, but upon consideration decided a brief visit first might be preferable. Preferable it was, but I obviously chose the wrong day to do it.

The tube ride passed through Westminster station and someone failed to send an alert that it was a school day out because just when I avoided getting on a carriage crammed with children, the carriage I am on becomes flooded with kids.  When they left, like atmosphere escaping a breached fuselage I sat in a seat and the lady that took a seat across from me shot me a glance of complete and utter relief and we both smiled.  Such an exchange on the Underground is never done, but there were no witnesses.

The phone said we were to have 2 hours of rain at most, but I read that to mean I would need an umbrella for most of the day so I brought one and good thing I did because when I got off the train at Hever it was near steady rain and I had a mile to walk.  A mile to walk through a muddy fucking field, through low lying hedges that cruelly snagged my umbrella hindering my passage.  I cursed my situation because it seems that lately all my trips to England seem to involve me getting lost in the middle of some field in the middle of nowhere.

By the time I reached the castle I was a sight to behold I am sure, but they took pity on me and let me in.  Fires were blazing, Christmas trees were lit and there were few people that dared the weather besides the hardcore so the castle was near empty.  There were times when I was completely alone in a room in the castle and I could just enjoy it in complete solitude.

On the train ride back to London Bridge station I sat across too incredible looking tradies.  I thought it was a little funny since they were obviously coming home from their construction job, and I was coming home from my fanciful trip through high society Tudor England yet I was the one whose boots and Dickies were splattered with mud and looked like I the one that had put in a proper days work at "the site".  They probably couldn't work because of the rain, and here I was sleeping all the way back to London Bridge while they swiped their way through Hinge profiles.

Heading back to my room on the Central line I can always notice the Americans even if they are halfway down the carriage.  They talk loud enough for the entire fucking place to hear.  This striped haired specimen said something about her 'friend in Seattle' and that gave me a little bit of a shock, but then I remembered I only really know three people in Seattle. 

Today I am making a point of bring my earbuds.  That seems to help a lot of London commuters cope with these interminable periods where phones become little more than useless e-readers.