Adventure Is Under Construction - April 2024: Travel Home Day

[Gill H]

<<Day 2

Friday 3 May

The alarm went off at 6am and we were soon ready, packed and enjoying our last time at the breakfast buffet. I’m still impressed at the quality of the fresh breads, meats and cheeses here, and the lovely warm madeleines are a must.

We needed to get our valuables back from the safe, so we asked at the counter and they brought them straight away. Now that we had our passports back, the realisation that we were heading home hit us hard. Ah well, there’s always a next trip.

We had a few of the instant cappuccino sachets left in our room, so we gave them to the staff to use. Then we paid what we owed including the 3 days of breakfast (for some reason the Ibis tends to operate a ‘pay when you’re here’ system instead of paying in advance – worth remembering).

Bidding goodbye to the Ibis and its lovely staff, we walked round to the front entrance of the station, so we could use the lift with our suitcase. The lift was really slow today and we missed a train waiting for it, but we were on the platform by 8am.

We reached Gare du Nord by 9. This was cutting it finer than we wanted, but fortunately security was very quiet and we were soon through to the waiting area.

Once our train was called we joined the queue to get down to the platform. Unfortunately the escalator was broken so Peter went down the stairs, and I waited with the suitcase for the lift. Then we rushed along the platform, figured we were going the wrong way and rushed back again, until we found carriage 4 and eventually got settled in our seats.

The train left on time at 10:11 and soon we were speeding back to London.

We discovered we could hook our ipads over the back of the trays in front of us, so had our own personal seatback TVs for the journey!

Eventually I wandered to the buffet car and came back with a small tub of paprika flavoured Pringles, a pack of cheddar biscuits (from Wookey Hole, according to the packet) and a couple of soft drinks. I resisted these though...

Mmm, lovely, a mouthful of Ballers...

[Gill H]

The Eurostar journey was uneventful, and although I prefer the old comfy seats they used to have, the train was fine. We arrived at St Pancras on time at 11:30 (thank you, time difference) and didn’t have to show our passports on the way out. We were stopped briefly by a group of people from the Office of National Statistics who were asking us how much our holiday had cost and how we had found our passport experience. So we’re probably featuring in some survey results by now! As a fellow civil servant I couldn’t say no to my colleagues, could I?

We made our way down to the platform for the Hammersmith and City line, and got straight on the first train, but then realised we had got on the Metropolitan line by mistake which wouldn’t help us! Darn, we have been away from London too long. Not a problem though, as we got off at Euston Square and just waited on the platform for the next Hammersmith and City train to Paddington.
Once at the station we went upstairs where there was a branch of Leon. I had aioli chicken salad.

Peter had a Korean chicken wrap with waffle fries (still in the box at this point!)

We had hoped to finish our meal with a coffee and cake at the Paddington themed café upstairs, but sadly it seemed to have been taken over by another firm and was just a normal café now. Nothing took our fancy there, so instead we made our way downstairs and had lattes and pastries at the Ritazza café.

[Gill H]

Our train home was, as so often, beset with problems and we ended up arriving into Cardiff 20 minutes late. We did just manage to make our connection though, and were home by 5:30 and saying hello to Cookie.

Having started the holiday with an Indian meal, we decided to finish it with a Chinese one, and phoned for a delivery. Not long afterwards we were tucking into a mixed starter, chicken in black bean sauce, king prawn in yellow bean sauce and a fried rice to share. No photos as we were too hungry!

So, that was our DLP trip. For those who enjoy ‘haul’ photos, here’s what we bought:

The Bistrot Chez Remy plates:

A Stitch Christmas decoration:

Some Phantom Manor patches:

The much-needed Mickey umbrella:

Stitch Small World pin:

Stitch Phantom Manor pin:

And now to bring you up to speed with what’s going on chez Hothersall!

We just got back from a lovely long weekend in London where we saw Hello Dolly and Starlight Express – the latter being a special show to us, as it was our first date 32 years ago! Both great shows, and thanks to the joys of theatre tokens and sitting in the cheap seats, it didn’t leave us too much out of pocket.

Mum is still being looked after well in the nursing home, and Dad is happily living at home being taken care of by the amazing Stefie, his live-in carer. Stefie is an absolute gem and it’s been lovely to see them having movie nights and going out together for trips. She celebrates her 30th birthday this week and we’re taking her out for the day.

As for Disney trips, we have a very important one coming up soon. It will be our first ever visit to the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California. As with our Tokyo trip, we’ve had to cut it down for budgetary reasons, so we will just be spending a week in Anaheim itself. We’ve got tickets for 5 days at Disney and have all sorts of plans for our ‘park free day’ – but you’ll need to look out for my pre-trippie ‘This Happy Place’ to learn more!

As for now – thanks for reading and au revoir, a bientot, see ya real soon!

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