Talbennyhall’s Weblog

Some of you may know that Daphne and I were invited to join a very good friend of ours for his 60th Birthday celebrations at his expense!  We were to accompany him and his family plus three other friends on a mystery holiday. No information was forthcoming except the need for passports and decent clobber. No problem there then, well except the BA strike! 

We all meet in London at some poncey hotel, with me expecting a nice restful evening after the trauma of the long and tiring journey from Talbenny…..NO! we have to have dinner, then off to the theatre to see that pufter kid prancing about in that Billy Elliot musical!  Well it had better get better than that I thought, but no it was still going downhill. I presume that due to the BA strike the flights to our destination had been cancelled, why? because we are going by train!!! I ask you in this day and age who wants to spend hours in some old, grubby train? not me.  As many of you know it is not in my nature to offend, so grudgingly I dragged our suitcases to Victoria station only to be told to get on some old train (just as I thought!) with ‘Pullman’ written on the side. Where the hell is Pullman, some obscure  and forgotten resort on the south coast?  Anyway, after some posh scoff and bubbly wine we got off and onto a bus which drove onto another train called The Eurostar which then went to France, under the English Channel! then onwards to yet another old train.  This one could be better I thought; at least it was fast and gave a hint to our destination….’The Orient Express’……well that was wrong on both counts; first we stayed in Europe and second it wasn’t fast…26 hours on board!

This is getting a little tedious all round, so let me cut to the chase, we had a sleeper cabin to each couple (not even a double bed) plenty to eat and drink (this was on the plus side!) loads of nice scenery which reminded me of Snowdonia, then eventually arriving in some remote part of Italy of all places, where you can’t even get a proper taxi….Venice!!! Yes it was very nice for somewhere foreign, and we were grateful for the sunshine, but get this; after 3 nights we got a plane home (well Gatwick…not even Cardiff Airport) in 90 minutes, yes 90 festering minutes!!!!!!!!!!

Yes well we did have a good time and all, and the food, drink and hotel were very special, not to mention Venice itself and we were very grateful to be included in the celebrations, but 90 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!