Carole is the one who suggested the institution of
‘Megabus’ as my way south – boy, and am I glad she did! It is a nice
comfortable coach that travels to various places around the country (persons on
any particular coach may be headed for a number of different stops along its particular
route) – AND the incredible thing is that it does it at an amazingly reasonable
price! For instance, it cost me £20 to get from Birmingham to Poole, a
four to five-hour drive. Now there’s nothing to keep me from travelling all over
the place. ‘Course, there’s always that little thing about pinpointing a place
to stay once you’ve gotten yourself there . . . and that, too, at a reasonable
price. (Check it out, guys; they have them in the United States, I understand –
and Europe, too! Faster and cheaper than buses – and trains.)
Got my ticket online. In order to have some extra time with Carole
in Poole before we went off to the convention, it had been my plan to leave a
day sooner than this. However, as Loraine,
the lady who was taking the singles convention reservations, intimated there
was a good chance she could hook me up with someone I could carpool down to the
convention with, I held off checking into the bus thing. As the date approached and when I still
hadn’t heard from her, I began my first delvings into the world of Megabus. To
my disappointment, I discovered that by this time the spots for the morning
trip on the day I had wanted to go were no longer available. (There is also an
evening departure that arrives in Poole around midnight – uhm, no thanks. Good
thing, too, as it turned out . . . my trip lengthened out longer than the online schedule had indicated – it would have been REALLY late.) Thank goodness for having
given myself that much leeway at least – the convention began on the Friday
night and concluded Sunday, following an evening fireside – and thankfully, I
would still be in plenty of time to not miss anything. (There was an option for
staying over an additional night for those who were interested.)
Leah was good enough to drop me off at the two side-to-side bus stops downtown on Colmer Circus Queensway (one of the very streets that appears
on the Destination Birmingham board game we were playing the other night!)
where the Megabus collects its riders. (As we were slightly early we took a
little side trip and Leah drove me past the recently re-built school where she
teaches.) There was a nice company man at the stop, clipboard in hand, helping people
get oriented as they waited for the arrival of their scheduled bus. He ‘thoughtfully’
apprised me that the driver had radioed ahead to report that the loo on the bus
was out of service, and that now might be a good time to get in a little
‘toilie try’ before it arrived. I had fifteen minutes to have a go at following
his directions through several blocks of city-scrapers to some abstruse tavern
and then weave my way back, all without getting lost. Did it – whew! The whole will-I-end-up-missing-the-bus
thing got my heart pumping REAL good, I can tell you.
When the coach did show up there was a wee fuss with
the driver over the fact of my not having the proper ticketless Megabus email
confirmation print-out (but I DIDN’T know . . .) to document my payment and reservation
(honest judge, I never received it, I promise), but, gratefully, the man with
the clip board was able to corroborate my claim by means of a simple phone call,
so all was well once again and I was able to settle back for the ride.
Sat down, quite close to the front, next to a beautiful
young Chinese woman with the clarity and depth of skin that makes you to feel
like you can practically dive right in, if you know what I mean. She told me her
American name was Florence – chosen by her boyfriend because, she informed me,
1) the name was very classic, 2) the city of Florence was a beautiful place,
and 3) correspondingly, she was a beautiful girl. (Inside AND out, it proved
true!) She had never been to America so I invited her to ask a true American anything
she had ever wondered about but hadn’t had the opportunity to ask. We had a
great conversation, part of it with religious underpinnings (she is not
Christian), before she left me at Coventry (where my friend, Gillian, lives) to
visit her boyfriend for the weekend.
The kilometers ticked away: after Coventry, there
was Banbury, Oxford, Winchester, and finally South Hampton. (One of the more
interesting city names we passed along the way was ‘Pokesdown for Boscombe.’
Don’t know why it’s called that – you’ll just have to look it up!) Yes, it was a
good four and a half hours on the motorways, just as advertised – I mostly read
and dozed some. What the Megabus internet site failed to make clear was that the
final leg of the trip was to drop you at the rail station near the South
Hampton airport, with Poole another one hour twenty back to the west by train
(we’d come further east than need be – for me anyway – for the fact that South
Hampton is a larger metropolis, and thus, the prescribed route). Oh, long
journey!
The plan was for me to meet Carole at the Poole
Hospital where she was engaged till 5. (Carole works several days a week in their
pathology lab as a phlebotomist – in other words, a blood letter.) When I
alighted from the train at Poole, naturally I had no idea how far or in what
direction I needed to go to find the hospital. But not to be outdone, I did what
I always do: ask questions of strangers – and do it quick! I was all prepared,
with my ‘vast experience,’ to take a bus to get wherever I needed to go – the
great thing turned out to be that the hospital was within fifteen minutes
walking distance of the train station. Along the way I came across a large
shopping center with many stores I recognized. I was really tempted to take a
look (I am not close to any major department stores where I live presently),
but passed by. With an hour left to go before our scheduled meeting, I wanted
to make sure I was headed in the right direction and that I could determine the
location of her laboratory once I got there.
Having
woven my way through the hospital corridors, I asked the receptionists where it
indicated ‘blood tests’ if a Carole Powell worked there. Yeah, she did! So I
curled up in the waiting room, once again with Wolf Hall, and loitered until
she had finished her duties for the day. A couple of times she had reason to
pass through the area where I was sitting and I could see by her face that,
correspondingly, she was relieved, as well, to see that I had made it okay.
Finished for the day we drove to Carole’s home (as
I never did make it back to Carole’s, I was sorry I had not been able to come
the day earlier as I had originally planned – to have experienced more of the
flavor of Poole. Oh, well – another time, for sure!), where she rents out rooms
to help cover her costs. I looked around while Carole threw the last of her
things together, and once again we were off – this time headed due west, straight
for Weymouth, where the convention was being held at a hotel on the promenade. (A seaside town in the county of Dorset, Weymouth is situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey on the English Channel coast. With a population of just
above 50,000, it has been a significant
port since medieval times and a major seaside resort since the 18th Century.
Weymouth is a well-known tourist resort, its economy dependent upon its harbour and visitor attractions. An
interesting American historical item of note: In 1635, on board the ship Charity,* around 100 emigrants
from the town crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in Weymouth, Massachusetts. More townspeople emigrated to America to bolster the populations of Weymouth, Nova Scotia, and Salem, Massachusetts. Then called Naumking, Salem became infamous for its witch trials.)
We arrived at our destination just in time to sup
with the rest of the group – see photo below.
(ALL the meals were yummy:
plentiful, well-prepared, and British, through and through – meaning
lots of white bread, gravy and every form of potato you could imagine. Do you
know in the grocery store there are up to 10 different varieties available?!) It was during supper, as we
were acquainting ourselves with one another, that I made the most curious discovery: I had been saying that I had come
from Birmingham, and more exactly, from the Harborne Ward. Someone pointed out,
‘then you’ll know those guys over there at that table,’ referring to Andy and
Roger (I came to learn). I recognized Andy (in his 40s) right away as he is a striking guy, with a lovely Roman nose due to his boxing earlier in his life, VERY fun, thick Brummy
accent – though we had never been formally introduced; Roger, a decade older, I
didn’t know at all. (Of course, I had to make a big deal about here I was and
here they were and how come we didn’t know to get together? – after all we'd come almost 200 miles - may not seem far to you, but, here in this 'small island,' that is a LOT! Before the
weekend was over we had the chance to become the closest of friends as I ended
up taking them up on their offer for a ride home – four hours stuck in small space together has a tendency to do that. I had thought I’d stay on with Carole, but
in the end decided to come on home with them on Sunday. I don’t know what there is about it, but when
I get to the end of something, given the opportunity, I suddenly can think of
nothing other than ‘I just wanna get home – and quick!’)
Having been refreshed we played a fun version of
‘speed getting to know you,’ in which two people interviewed one another for 60
seconds. The idea was to gather obscure, uncommon facts that hopefully nobody else had
asked. You got points for information that nobody else had extracted from the
person. It was a lot of fun and gave you the opportunity to gain a lot of
information you could use in making conversation – the whole idea, I’m sure.
After that we had musical entertainment by BJ McCabe – live music for an
intimate (talking size of the room here) dance (we ladies have such fun dancing
with one another in a group). This event took place in the ‘bar area,’ while
there was another large sitting room with a fireplace, the lounge, where people played games
and got to know one another better.
I confess I went to bed earlier than most: I was bushed from the long day of traveling – after all, I AM Jeff’s mom! Others confessed that they did NOT find their way to their beds till the cows came home - up late playing cards. Oh, my!
*Of further enunciation note, Carole kindly brought to my
attention, as she soon discerned from straining to understand my mumblings,
that in the use of certain words I was throwing her off by pronouncing my ‘t’s
like ‘d’s. (Whoa, I wasn’t even aware of that!) For example: (charidy), as in
charity shop, (fidded), as in fitted sheet, (visider), as in visitor, (Kadie),
as in Katie – try it yourself, and you’ll see what I mean (though at the same
time, to redeem myself, I do NOT say moun’ain!). I’ve found that it is really
hard to get my tongue to say a good strong ‘t.’ How about you? (Hhm, I’m seeing
a pattern here – the phenomenon seems to occur in words mostly where the ‘t’ is
in the middle of the word, with a second syllable following after. See what I’m saying! Take the word ‘middle,’ for
instance – seems somebody has already exchanged the ‘t’s for ‘d’s. Hah hah!)
Photos_
1-2 Megabus
all aboard
great marketing on the mega backside
3- postcard Weymouth
4- Weymouth beach, back in the day
5- Weymouth beach today - summer - not now, of course, where it's all about people walking their dogs!
6- the Promenade at Weymouth – l to r, terraced row of hotels, the street, the asphalt boardwalk, the sand (pebbles really), finally the ocean (the Richmoor Hotel is situated in this very fashion – that close to where its happening!)
7- another shot of the promenade, aka the esplanade
8- dining experience (actually this is breakfast, as opposed to dinner – notice, British toast, unshaven men – but it gives a good idea of where we were served our plated meals; Loraine is the smiling lady towards the back in a blk & white blouse)
4- Weymouth beach, back in the day
5- Weymouth beach today - summer - not now, of course, where it's all about people walking their dogs!
6- the Promenade at Weymouth – l to r, terraced row of hotels, the street, the asphalt boardwalk, the sand (pebbles really), finally the ocean (the Richmoor Hotel is situated in this very fashion – that close to where its happening!)
7- another shot of the promenade, aka the esplanade
8- dining experience (actually this is breakfast, as opposed to dinner – notice, British toast, unshaven men – but it gives a good idea of where we were served our plated meals; Loraine is the smiling lady towards the back in a blk & white blouse)
