England 12: in which we say goodbye to London and travel to the countryside. Plus a little foreshadowing.

I am taking a big step here and making my entry in Prosebox — and then if OD ever has a lull in fucked-upedness, I’ll cross-post it over there. I’m at work and bored out of my mind, so am not in a mood to wait around for the next OD slightly-less-fucked-up-so-possible-to-post window. We’re in a strange dead zone at work and I have exactly nothing to do– not even the mindless low-priority things I always put off till I’m out of more important things to do. Between giving New Girl projects and Mr. Organized being bored too, we’re caught up. YIkes. It’s also Fall Break so all the students are gone. An excellent time to catch up on my England entries!

Sunday morning, June 23, we said goodbye to London. A somewhat sad goodbye — I loveLondon. I want to go back and spend some serious time there. I want to live there. Probably not happening anytime soon, though. But I also love the country beyond all reason, so it was exciting as well. We took the train to Pewsey, where Baker B was to pick us up. It seems odd that the closest train station was Pewsey. He had been staying in Devizes that first week, and we were all going to be in Marlborough for the second week, and Pewsey is a much smaller town than either of them. According to Wilkipedia, which has really outdated census info (like from 2001), Devizes has about 11,000 residents, Marlborough has about 9,000, and Pewsey has 3,500. Yet that’s that’s where the train station is. I think they are all only 7-10 miles apart, though, so I guess it’s not THAT weird.

ANYHOW, I’d bought tickets online before we left the US, and they were ridiculously cheap — ten pounds each, $15 US — so no complaints. We caught the train at Paddington Station at 11:30. We got to the station ridiculously early, because with our history of massive problems and drama, I just assumed that something would happen. There would be tube stations closed, we’d have to take a different route, we’d miss our stop, we’d get lost, we would get off at the wrong station at Paddington and not be able to figure out where the overland train stop is (there are several places you could end up by going to Paddington, at least on the map– in reality it was easy to figure out where we needed to go). I also feared we’d have problems getting our pre-ordered tickets, but all I had to do was stick my card into the machine and it spat them out — I didn’t even need the reference number.

It was all amazingly smooth sailing, and we had something like two hours to kill at the station because we were so early. But that was fine — MUCH better than being in a panic-rush, or completely missing the train. How unlike Chronically Late For Everything Woman! Women, I should say. Kim is even worst than I am about timely arrivals.

Paddington is a very neat old station.

With Paddington Bear connections, of course.

Our train!

And so, off we go into the countryside! Thinking that we were saying goodbye to London until some far distant date in the future when we get to make another trip. Thinking that was it for London.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

As it turns out, it was not our last view of London. Unfortunately. We got to see London again way sooner than we were expecting to see London again, and despite my looooove for London, seeing London again a few days later was NOT a good thing. But that’s a tale for a few entries down the road……

I took tons of pictures from the train. None of which came out all that well since we were travelling at a high rate of speed through the countryside. I loved riding the train, though. Being in America, we rarely get to ride a train. I think I’ve only ridden two, and that was years and years ago. Once up to DC, and once from DC to New York. Well, and back, so four times. Still, that’s not much in all the years I’ve been around. Riding the train is lots of fun. I wish I could do it more often.

We arrived at Pewsey right on time — a quarter till 1 – and although I had been worried that we would not find Baker B waiting for us — would he find the station?? Would he wreck the hated Wide Focus? Would he get hopelessly lost?? — there he was, waving at us from the platform as we hopped off the train. Looking exhausted, as poor Baker B had been up nearly all night long. The pub that his flat was attached to had a REALLY REALLY LOUD party the night before, right against his wall, complete with booming dish-rattling music, and his weird landlord had just vanished without mentioning a thing to Baker B. So he was totally unprepared and already tired and it was pretty much his last straw. Then he ended up leaving the flat for good at five in the morning, and napping in the car at the train station. But it was yet another trial he came through with astonishing grace, and BOY was he glad to see us. And escape Devizes. (Which incidentally is a cute interesting little place, despite being no Marlborough and I’d like to see it again properly- we did go one day just to walk around a bit but that was it.)

Well, looks like this will be another split-entry-day, as I have many more pictures of our First Day In Wiltshire –