01.Twenty four hours is a series in which 24 one hour programmes describe the events of one adventuresome day. Each hour is connected to each other and continuing to the whole. I wish I could write like that. Usually I begin with an idea or a plan and it takes in the direction I fancy. Sometimes as now I begin with no plan but write according to a mixture of past and present experience and connections emerge which create a whole or the semblance of a whole. The following twenty four hours relates to the experiences of a day connected to the past and end with an interesting and strange experience.
02. I am not a good traveller if the object of my journey is to get a from a to b and for this reason I am no longer prepared to use a whole day travelling by car, sometime visiting somewhere en route or going for a film and then arriving at my destination for the evening or late when the evenings are light, but only two or three hours drive away, with another two or three hours thee following day thus a whole day is not given to getting ready, driving, resting from tiredness. There was a time I would rise early having got everything ready and undertake a fierce drive or as I have done rive early to Birmingham was it from London or Wiltshire via Oxfordshire so that there was time to queue and buy a ticket for the last day of a test match and watch Freddy Flintoff for the first time and Petersen and watch England win by tea time and then set off for the rest of the journey home. like my life to be like that, and with the cat there is security to being all the possessions I believe I will need such and adventure, the maps, the clothes, the electronics and the food. Yesterday I quickly assembled three such mini trips for the months of June to September 13 days accommodation in a Travelodge for £140, in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Oxfordshire.
03. A different kind of travel and mindset involves the train or coach which these days as with accommodation can be amazingly inexpensive, nut always to greater London, to the flat of my mother and aunt until it was given up in 2004 and then to Travel Lodges at Croydon or central London when cheap deals were available, or at the Innkeepers Croydon on the basis of three nights for two and an unlimited breakfast of cereal, fruit juice, coffee or tea, croissants and toast. I usually go by train if the return cost is £20-£30 and the coach otherwise which has been for £10 to £20. I wonder what the impact of National express taking over GNER will be. I assume the new bus pass scheme this April will not apply to coach travel for the over sixties. By sitting towards the back of the coach or moving to an area the train which has not been prebooked it is usually possible to have two seats to sit in comfort with easy access to food, books and writing materials. While the train is significantly quicker than the coach in terms of city to city three hours compared six to seven I can save good hour on the overall journey because the coach station is across the road from Victoria and the fast train to East Croydon and I can take the coach from a few yards from the Metro station which for the train involves good a half hour journey to Newcastle. Because the coach begins at South Shields one can pick a seat as usually trhere are only two or three passengers waiting at the stop with me. I find I enjoy the travel through Durham, Teesside and Yorkshire and then coming across central London into Victoria more than the train, and often coach passengers will engage in collective and open chats, and I have books, or written well.
04. I had these thoughts in mind when yesterday I received an ail advising that Travel Lodge were making available a number of rooms for £9 a night for June, July and August. I abandoned plans for the day and checked when the Olympic games were to be held, although China is likely to mean much overnight TV watching, I also checked the Durham Cricket Club site for their 2008 fixtures. With the Olympics in early August and the football season recommencing in August, and considering taking iota season for Durham which as with football the prepayment means that one has to got to ensure one gets value for the money, although as with the theatre or the cinema, prepayment reduces flexibility. I must book to see Jose Carreras though if I am not already too late. The outcome was the decision to concentrate on June and July and when Durham were playing their matches away from the Riverside at Chester Le Street.
05. For ten years I watched Durham Cricket Club from the member's area of other clubs, football supporters please note, including the Long Room at Lords, meeting a distinguished former player at the Oval, and also at Guilford Sussex at Hove, Kent at Canterbury and Maidstone, Yorkshire at Leeds and Harrogate, Lancashire at Old Trafford, Warwickshire at Edgbaston, Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, Leicestershire at Grace Road, My first target was Hove where if they game lasted the full four days, I would stop over on the penultimate day of May paying a higher price for accommodation of £19 and have three days or four days at Brighton or Littlehampton, or elsewhere in Sussex, with again one night at a higher rate somewhere en route back, making a five or six night break. The problem was that the system could not cope with the demand, despite booking having to be made six months in advance. By about four pm I was prepared to give until later, got myself ready and then discovered the torrential rain, so intent had I been on trying to log and stay on line, so I changed back once more and settled to watch films and play chess against the computer while continuing to try and log on to the site. It was mid evening before I became successful. Alas although £9 rooms were showing as available at Littlehampton for June 1st and 2nd the price was significantly higher when I attempted to book. Durham at Hove was not possible at the special prices.
06.I lived between Wakefield and Leeds for a year ad have been a frequent visitor to Leeds, Harrogate, Hull and other Yorkshire towns regularly since moving to the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1969, while at Cheshire and moving to Sunderland and South Tyneside. After West Riding where my area of responsibility took in Doncaster, Barnsley and Rotherham, although between Christmas and New Year 1960/1961 and 1961/1962 I walked from Coast to Coast leaving at Doncaster on the first occasion with a damaged foot, but making it all the way to Hill on the second. I continued to have contact with Yorkshire during the three years at Cheshire make my first visit to Hull until moving to Cheshire where I represented the County on the North Region Associations for Blind and for Deaf. This was monthly forum covering the counties and county boroughs from the Scottish borders to the Midlands where the official representatives were usually councillors accompanied by an officer specialising in the work of the disability and the independent organisations who often then provided specialist services. Cheshire decided to appoint only an officer to attend meetings and as one of my duties was to implement the new Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, I was given the task and which usually involved an overnight stay if the journey was to Northumbria, Durham and Yorkshire. My official association continued then based on Tyneside and I immediately remember conferences or courses at Scarborough, York and Harrogate. I also did a Drug advisory visit to a Hospital Trust neat Skipton. Then there were social and recreational visits to Leeds and Sheffield, Hull, Grimsby and Barnsley for Football, Bruce Springsteen also played at Sheffield. I have experienced Opera at the Royal Opera House in Leeds and Botham Ashes at Headingly and I took my mother to celebrate the 90th birthday of my Aunt to Whitby, one of many days out to the Dales and the Moors. There have also been significant family links since 1966. I was able to book three £9 rooms and one at £19 for a four day mini trip to East and West Yorkshire in June.
07 My links with Oxford and its county did not commence until 1961 and apart from 12 months between 1963 and 1964 I lived there until 1967 and since then making a conference visit staying at the Randolph Hotel, also undertaking a drug advisory visit, and more recently making two visits to the city and the areas where I worked. I managed to get three nights staying near Bicester in the Cherwell valley on the M40 which involves a short trip to the outskirts of south Oxford, reaching the city through area which was badly flooded earlier this year. Because of the total distance I am breaking up the journey with a night each way at Wakefield
08 The third trip is to Nottingham, a city of significance for forty years, although most of the visits have involved cricket and football, but also includes Torvil and Dean.
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