Yup….
I survived.
Survived the place that is known as Mordor.
3 Days of “Bora Da”.
Wednesday
I leave the office, jump in a cab and it takes me up to Paddington where I grab a Maccy D’s and then proceed to stink out the 1st class carriage with a slaggy Big Mac;
Which is quickly devoured and I then hop onto the laptop and try and work….
With feck all 3g signal.
Why the hell do the mobile phone providers boast about 90% coverage… as soon as I leave London, I can barely get a single…. I guess the sheep don’t miss the lack of coverage much, but it annoys the hell out of me.
It’s a fairly uneventful journey until I get to Cardiff. The train guard announces;
“Because of over crowding on the train, we are going to have to de-classify 1st class coaches F & H..”
Shock!
Horror!
Am I going to have to sit with the common people? Will we be invaded by cattle class?
Relief soon washes over me when I realise that I’m in coach G. Perfectly safe from being invaded by the hoardes from cattle class….. (only joking!)
So, after that intial trauma the train carries westwards to Mordor without a problem and I check into the Dragon Hotel, where I spend the evening there, alone. My friend Ann wasn’t around for drinks or dinner so I spent another evening like Billy no-mates in the hotel, ate alone, drank alone.
Had a meal downstairs in the Brasserie…
Nothing too exciting;
-
Scallops
-
Salmon
-
Bottle of Pinot
I grab a double brandy and pint of lager from the bar and head on upstairs to my room to play SL until the small hours of the morning before I eventually sleep. One annoying thing did happen, when I went to charge my iPhone, the damn cable had broke…. Eek! The battery was less than half full!
Panic!
That phone is my life! It’s my alarm clock!
I switch all the apps off, and pray it holds it charge to wake me up in the morning.
Need a charge and a new cable tomorrow.
Thursday
Ouch.
Ouch.
I must have had more Brandy than I realise, cause my head hurts.
I toddle off downstairs and grab breakfast, that being a slice of toast and some porridge then head up to the centre for a day of interviews, which involved 4 telephone interviews to BW Developers in Switzerland, Australia, India and Holland… and 1 face to face interview. Whilst I’m doing the interviews, I manage to find another geek who had a charging cable to give my much needed wee phone a boost.
By 4pm, I’m finished all the interviews, got a developer chosen and absoultely shattered…. that was all kind of intense. I was looking forward to just heading back to the hotel, get changed and head to the computer shop to buy another charging cable for the iPhone.
Well… that’s the plan, it was the plan until I bump into Robert. He wants to go for a drink in the evening. Looks like I will be going out tonight, but at least I’m not a Billy no-mates anymore.
I head back to the hotel and on the way my damn headphones broke. This is turning out to be a very long and troublesome day.
Grrrrrrrr
I dump stuff and head to the shop to now buy a replacement cable charger AND headphones.
That’s £15 gone.
And of course there’s the headphones to replace as well….
and there goes another £54 pound……
Expensive trip in Swansea so far.
I head back to the hotel, sort out some e-mails.. sort out some stuff in SL then head downstairs to get some food…
Grabbed a local paper to read whilst I eat, the Swansea Evening Post
Whilst I munch down on my main…
Pheasent
Then desert… cause I was feeling kinda peckish…
Bread and Butter pudding…
Then it was off to the No Sign Bar to meet up with Robert for a couple of drinks before heading back to my hotel for a night cap and some more SL
Then sleep…
Today
Woke up feeling fine. Still stuffed from the evening before so it’s no breakfast for me, just packing everything up then into a cab to the Swansea Vale…
Well, that’s where I told the taxi driver to take me…. unfortunately, it must have been my accent cause he decided to drive me to the Morriston.
Eejit. These places are *miles* apart.
Eventually I get back on track and head to the centre, get through my meetings and get a cab to Neath, then hop onto the train back to Londonium.
Jump in another cab and get home.
Friday evening, back home, in London… the house is cold, empty…. but at least I’m not in Swansea anymore. That’s gotta count for something.
Baskers World 
Swansea… I remember it all too well; sometimes I see it in my dreams, or rather my nightmares, but then I dream of strange cities; and dreams are older than brooding Tyre, or the contemplative Sphinx, or garden-girdled Babylon.Ai Elbereth Gilthonielo menel palan-díriel,le nallon sí di'-nguruthos!A tíro nin, Fanuilos!Of course Frodo did not get any pheasant and nowhere which serves bread and butter pudding is as bad as R'lyeh.Possibly I need to stop reading/quoting fantasy books and get a first life. Still, it's good to hear you made it back to the smog and endless traffic of the metropolis.Take care, Stuart.
hope I never pick up the accent…
London or Welsh? Although I must say that I am fond of Wales generally since I was at university in Bangor. Of course there is a world of difference between the industrial wasteland of Mordor and the natural wonders of Snowdonia.
Either!!
A Scots lass should know that the only thing wrong with Wales is that you have to go all the way across England to get to it…
:o)