Cheltenham; Friday, 17 January, 2014

Ninety minutes, in theory, should be more than enough time to get across London to catch a train from Paddington. However, with another round of flooding affecting Southern Britain, now actually a daily occurrence, the trains were in a complete mess and whilst I made it to Paddington with about 10 minutes to spare, it was a little too close for comfort.

Having settled down into my seat I was able to relax as the train meandered its way west across England, turning off of the main line at Swindon to travel along the stunning Golden Valley to Stroud and beyond towards Gloucester.

I walked the 10 minutes or so from the station out to the hotel and dropped my stuff off, before heading back out and wandering into town, except I hadn’t realised quite how far out of town the railway station actually was (and the hotel was further still). By the time I reached the town centre it was already close to dusk.

I had a wander around the town centre and stopped for a bite to eat before deciding that it would make much more sense to catch the bus back to the station.

I walked back from the station, only to find that the bus also stopped just around the corner from the hotel as I saw it emerge from a side street on it’s return leg.