“Sun glittering on the Caribbean, 84°F, a slight breeze, lying oiled on
a lounger by the shimmering pool sipping a rum punch. Paradise.”
With
near-frostbitten fingers I texted my colleague back: “Dull grey sheen
from the thick snow, 23°F, icy-cold wind from the Arctic, swathed in
clothing in a freezing tomb of a room, cup of lukewarm tea in my hand.
Hell.”
Stupid me. I’d made the mistake of going on business in Britain. In winter. Over a public holiday.
I’ve
excoriated foreign hotels, barbaric restaurants and alien airlines, and
delineated the faults of the big wide world into which business
travellers are forced to venture.
But this time I’m reserving my
special venom for my homeland. To encapsulate, it seems we couldn’t
organise a binge in a brewery or a bawdy romp in a bordello.
I
had business in the English Lake District, the picturesque
Wordsworthian golden daffodils kingdom of our dreams (in reality a
rip-off homeland for incompetent hoteliers, rapacious restaurateurs and
the kind of greedy local council who’d put a ten quid an hour car park
on top of Helvellyn if they could).
First I made the mistake of
driving there. Trains were being cancelled because of the wrong kind of
snow, planes were grounded, but I had a 4×4 so I ventured forth. I got
to Archway in Islington in 20 minutes. Then – traffic jammed solid.
It
took a further one and a half hours to get to the M1, just six miles
away. Then a further seven and a half hours to reach Penrith. The
motorways looked as though the whole of Britain was fleeing a nuclear
disaster.
By the time I finally drove up to my snow-draped
picturesque boutique hotel just a stone’s throw from a lake, it was
almost midnight and I was seeing red rear-lights everywhere and
unsteady on my feet from car motion.
I’d booked a room for
single occupancy with bathroom. Mine host opened the room door. It was
indeed a cute little ante-room with a sloping roof, a skylight and
narrow little… what? It appeared to be a chaise-longue covered in a
bedspread. I waited for him to take me into the main room. He didn’t
move.
This was it! This coffin-sized enclosure was the room! We
wedged ourselves in and the manager said defensively: “It’s cosy, isn’t
it?” I just gasped, open-mouthed like a fish. Words wouldn’t come.
Eventually I croaked: “Where – where’s the bathroom? I can’t see the
bathroom.” He pointed: “Down the hall.”
Whaaat?
“No,
there’s some mistake. I booked a room with a bath.” He was unfazed.
“You’ve got a bath. It’s down the hall.” We checked the internet
reservation. Ah, the treacherous beauty of small print: it didn’t say
‘bathroom en suite,’ but rather ‘single occupancy room with private
bathroom.’ He smiled in triumph. Gotcha! And I was sharing my ‘private’
bathroom with room number Two.
I’d driven for almost ten hours,
I was groggy, cold, I think I had snow-blindness and I was dog tired.
After extracting a promise that the next night I’d move to a double, I
closed the door, shivered and felt the radiator. Cold as a corpse. They
turned the heat off at eleven until seven the next morning.
Soon
any residual heat had faded. Outside it was 23°F… nine below freezing.
I gulped down a quick cup of tea, dragged out a t-shirt, a shirt, jeans
and some woolly socks, changed into them and climbed into the icy
sheets.
Shivering and exhausted, I slowly fell into a restless sleep only to wake at four in the morning needing the bathroom.
I
stumbled through the freezing darkness, stubbed my toe, accidentally
peed on my foot, then staggered back to a feverish sleep, waking too
late for the prompt-at-eight-thirty cooked breakfast. The hotel boasted
Wi-Fi but when I tried to collect my e-mails – failure.
I
enquired. “Well, the hotel walls are very thick. Try another room.” I
took the laptop to first the lounge then the dining room, but like the
Fawlty Tower gourmet night duck, Wi-Fi was ‘off,’ and I was forced to
crunch across icy roads to an internet café eight miles away.
At my first 11am meeting I slumped into the chair looking like Captain Oates before he made his short but fateful walk.
I
doubt I shall ever criticise a foreign country again even if it means
Toad is silenced forever. England oh my England… what a bloody travel
mess you are.
