The Last Day From Hell
Have just finished my first costsaver for over a year - the ELizabethan, an elven day tour with a mostly Australian crowd plus a few New Zealanders and Canadians - plus one girl from ecuador who spoke little English and understood less. Nice crowd and very patient as I did not think I managed the tour v well. I changed the itnerary tomiss out ludlo on day three,a charming town but too far out of the way to justify a long journey, and substituted Wedgwood centre instead - at least driver and I got a decent lunch for free there.
Some of the days on the tour looked and were pretty long - from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm - which is ok occasionally but a wearing after a while. However, I was convinced that the last day would at least be easy - from Leeds to Sherwood forest for a short stop, then on to Cambridge and into London. The hotel in Leeds was barely accessibly because of road closures and it was pouring with rain this morning. Then a workman began closing the road in front of the hotel but we just ignored him, removed the cones and moved when we were ready. We took the M1 to Sheffield where we were stuck for an hour in traffic (road flooded and an accident we alter learned) then I decided to get out of the jam by cutting through rotherham and across country. Seemed promising at first until we hit roadworks and could see the now clear motorway nearby but inaccessible. I stubbornly refused to rejoin the main road when I could and that held us up further but we had a stop at Sherwood and made good progress to Cambridge where we went to King's Chapel and I arranged to meet them there to walk back to the coach if they wanted. Two (including Miss Ecuador) were not there and I shoudl have waited, so we were all ready bar her and Mr Canada,w ho had taken a shine to her, and I wnet looking. Of course they then came back to the coach another way and so I was last on - brought over by rickshaw for the first time since India.
An hour and a half late we set off for London having to take two people to Angel islington hotel (shades of Monopoly) and, well, suffice to say I made every msitake possible and hit every obstacle imaginable in eventually reaching the hotel two hours later. By now traffic was in full flow, one lady with a flight to catch was panicking and I was sulking. At seven we finally finished dropping off and I had a twenty five taxi journey (with another traffic jam thrown in) to get home to Brixton.
I've had better days...
Some of the days on the tour looked and were pretty long - from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm - which is ok occasionally but a wearing after a while. However, I was convinced that the last day would at least be easy - from Leeds to Sherwood forest for a short stop, then on to Cambridge and into London. The hotel in Leeds was barely accessibly because of road closures and it was pouring with rain this morning. Then a workman began closing the road in front of the hotel but we just ignored him, removed the cones and moved when we were ready. We took the M1 to Sheffield where we were stuck for an hour in traffic (road flooded and an accident we alter learned) then I decided to get out of the jam by cutting through rotherham and across country. Seemed promising at first until we hit roadworks and could see the now clear motorway nearby but inaccessible. I stubbornly refused to rejoin the main road when I could and that held us up further but we had a stop at Sherwood and made good progress to Cambridge where we went to King's Chapel and I arranged to meet them there to walk back to the coach if they wanted. Two (including Miss Ecuador) were not there and I shoudl have waited, so we were all ready bar her and Mr Canada,w ho had taken a shine to her, and I wnet looking. Of course they then came back to the coach another way and so I was last on - brought over by rickshaw for the first time since India.
An hour and a half late we set off for London having to take two people to Angel islington hotel (shades of Monopoly) and, well, suffice to say I made every msitake possible and hit every obstacle imaginable in eventually reaching the hotel two hours later. By now traffic was in full flow, one lady with a flight to catch was panicking and I was sulking. At seven we finally finished dropping off and I had a twenty five taxi journey (with another traffic jam thrown in) to get home to Brixton.
I've had better days...
posted by tourguideddie at 2:31 PM
1 Comments:
I would not say it was a "day from hell" as we found the last day most enjoyable as we got of the main motorways and saw more of the countryside. We found Eddie and John the driver to be most helpful as they did go out of their way to make a dinner at a local pub avaliable. Well done guys and we would use Trafalger again.
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