here I come
Sat in total silence, coach 8 seat 45, 08.55 Eurostar St Pancras to Paris. I’m wearing my Bose headphones again. They continue to impress. The beautiful thing about them is the fact that I can still hear the tannoy announcements but very little else. I have switched on the Radio 4 Today programme.
I’m in a Standard Premier seat. It’s basically a first class seat but without the champagne service. Sokay. Sgoodenough. The journey time to Brussels is 2 hours 17 minutes after which I switch to a train to Antwerp which I think is around half an hour.
Lovely night last night after the ITSPA meeting. Hannah and Tom joined us in the Flying Horse in Wilson Street and Jolyon Parsons came with us for a curry in SoHo. v nice it was. Afterwards Tom headed back to the beeb to get his bike and ride home and the Hansk, Jolyon and I went to The Phoenix Artist Club for a couple. Uber back to the Hilton Euston and a crash out. Lift in the hotel was broken!
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Underground and there is no signal so I’ve temporarily transferred typing to “Notes” for safety. It’s a while since I was on the Eurostar. Hannah’s 21st in Paris. That was a great weekend. She had a crowd of Lincoln pals over and I bought everyone dinner at Au Bon Coin on the Saturday night.
A fair old engineering project this Eurostar line. Long tunnel through London. It would be interesting to plot its route. We have emerged into daylight at 09.04 so that’s approximately 8 or 9 minutes underground.
Just passed a fine looking stone church surrounded by post WW2 mass produced semi detached houses. Didn’t seem right. Now pulling in to Ebbsfleet. Looking at things to do in this neighbourhood I note that the Hot Rod Diner is a mere 17 minutes walk away in Northfleet. Alas I have to move on.
This Eurostar train is a very smooth ride fair play to it. Much better than the ones I catch from Lincoln to Laandan. Expect to disappear shortly so will post this and catch up later.
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Antwerp trip pics here. Walked from station to hotel. Only 20 mins or so and very pleasant through the main shopping street. Wide pedestrianised road but lots of bicycles. Very noticeable buskers but without amplification. Far more civilised than the UK where they blare their music out using amplifiers. I never give to such buskers but I did give to the first accordionist – see vid below. It’s shorts weather here so was a bit hot by the time I got to the hotel. Nice Hilton in the Old Town. Going to nip out for a skeet.
Tags: diary