Nottingham

I decided to keep writing in this blog about any travelling we do, including that which is a lot closer to home. This weekend we went up to Nottingham to visit Jo and Andy, but also trying to see some people that I’ve not seen in years too. Two birds with one stone and all that. I know that Nottingham is not such an exciting destination, given that I lived there for many years, but it is a destination nonetheless.

It always feels strangely like coming home when the train pulls into Nottingham station. I wonder how many times I have passed through that station over the years. Andy was attempting to shoe-horn the car into a parking space when we got outside, so we saved him the bother and off we went.

On Friday night we met an old colleague of mine, Lez, and his wife Claire in the Hard to Find Café on Mansfield Road. It’s not all that hard to find as the sign clearly states it’s position. It was good to see Lez again, after maybe 5 years or so. We were also surprised by seeing Graham, another old colleague from the same place. Max turned up too, which was also unexpected and nice. I’m afraid that I very quickly slipped into the same rate of drinking that I was used to when I used to work with these guys, something I’m not used to now. It was probably not a good idea to open bottles of cider when we got back to Jo and Andy’s house.

I felt pretty grotty for the whole of Saturday. Other than a brief foray into Arnold to sort some things out we spent most of the day in front of the TV. We were supposed to be going to the Orange Tree to see Formication, the electronica project of an old uni friend of mine, Alec. I was sort of alright until I took a couple of tablets for my headache. The tablets had the unfortunate side effect of upsetting my stomach. Although I managed to endure the bus journey into Nottingham without splashing sick about the place I wasn’t confident I could manage the pub. So we turned away from the door, me breathing deeply and doing gassy little pre-vomit burps. I’m really disappointed that I missed the gig, as I really wanted to see Alec.

Jo is getting married in the summer and Gemma is a bridesmaid, which meant they had to go into Nottingham and look at dresses on Sunday. Thankfully Andy and I managed to escape the dress shops and look at cameras and pots and pans instead. After drawing a blank on the dress front we drove out to a country village pub for lunch. Lunch was alright, but Gemma’s vegetarian Sunday lunch option -just veg and a pudding and no gravy -wouldn’t win any awards.