- Hi-Speed train from King's Cross to Stratford
- Kronos Quartet in what looks like a grimy darts hall in Pontins
- Meeting someone from Luxembourg!
During my first 6 months or so in Bermondsey I had something covering my windows which I'm not sure can be described as curtains. Beige mesh might be a better description, so generally I'd had to try adapt to sleeping in the full beam of the permanently-on balcony light. Well, I didn't really sleep. Dozed and then woke at sunrise. Tony fitted a blackout blind about a month before I went away and I now sleep like a baby and without an alarm I'd probably sleep through until midday most days.
However, today I woke before my alarm; I think I had the music festival equivalent of Christmas Eve excitement/anticipation. I got up and packed for ATP, a music festival being held at the Pontins in Camber Sands (think the Inbetweeners) that had been curated by The National. It felt great being able to pack clothes I liked for a festival, rather than clothes I didn't mind being ruined. I packed as many toiletries as I wanted, and not just my 3for2 boots packs of facewipes and I packed my phone charger. I'd always dreamed of a music festival where I could contact my friends beyond the first day.
I was all prepared to go but then decided to open my work contract, and spent the 30 minutes I'd allocated for travel to King's Cross checking what discounts I received as a job perk (I'll tell you about them on my next cheap Spa Break). I eventually dragged myself away and headed to KC to meet Paddy. I bought my ticket from a nice French lady who confused me be telling me St Pancras was an entirely different station. What? When I joked that it was only a few metres away (yeah, joked. I'm not funny) she said with all seriousness that it would still take a little while to get to. 2 minutes later I was there.
Paddy was running late. And as the train departure time approached, he really was running. I think he went to every possible station entrance OTHER than the one our train was leaving from. When he burst in 3minutes before the train left, we figured we'd take the train an hour later and buy some food for our Chalet. Useful bit of King's Cross info - there is actually a supermarket in the area! A Tesco Metro on Caledonian Road. We loaded up on mulled wine and spiced rum and then went and got our hi-speed train to Ashford. 8minutes from King's Cross to Stratford International! I'm going to be dining out on that for months. It's pushed the 'Patrick Stewart owns a pied a terre in Bermondsey' fact right out. We changed at Ashford and then went onto Rye, sharing a train with 20/30 something, middle class clearly ATP ticket holding people. Straight off the train onto 'The Wave' bus (I never really thought I'd say 'a one-way ticket to Pontins, please') and then we arrived in what has got to be the most budget holiday camp in the world. I think you get a sense of these things when your first glance sees a huge Nisa advertising three bottles of wine for £15 in your eyeline.
I went to get our wristbands from a ticket desk in a Pirate Ship (later when we asked for directions to stage 1, the guy told us to head up through the Octopus' mouth. There's a theme clearly), causing a massive amount of what I think was un-warranted confusion as I explained I'd sold my ticket online via viagogo and didn't have any contact details of the guy we were sharing a cabin with. I assumed he could just exchange his ticket for a key and get himself in that way. Apparently that's ridiculous. I got his wristband and went to the cabin where Paddy called his mate who worked at viagogo in the hope that she could get Chris Bunting from Farnham's contact details. We eventually got a message to Chris with our room number and he turned up. He felt really awkward sharing our cabin and promised he wouldn't be in our way much even as we tried to convince him it was absolutely fine. He'd bought a ticket too! I think he was just terribly British and polite. He was in his late 30s and was Director of Leisure for Ealing Local Authority (FACT OF THE DAY Ealing has 155 parks) and had just come to ATP alone because he loved the bands. His music knowledge was brilliant.
Chris Bunting from Farnham left to go see some bands, and after a little dawdling and making up the beds in our twin room, we headed out to meet Paddy's friends. Paddy had gone to school with their mate Will Priestley (he's always announced with a surname) and Jimmy, Tom and Siobhan (Shiv) had met Will Priestley at university. They were a good bunch. Tom had seen the National 27 times. This December was the ten year anniversary of his first gig. I also spent a lot of time talking to another friend-of-friend called Lauren. She ran a nightclub with a friend in Stoke Newington and had worked on the door at an old uni friend Paul Richards' club night (Scared to Dance at Kings Cross Social Club). Small world.
We watched Kronos Quartet and Bear in Heaven then headed back to the others' apartment which turned out to be immediately overhead of ours. We played music, drank lots of prosecco and I found myself having a deep chat with a guy from Luxembourg who had been invited to the party. I was a little tipsy, so I imagine my conversation was dire and probably limited to 'isn't the capital of Luxembourg, Luxembourg?'.
End of day 67.
No comments:
Post a Comment