For reasons that are far too dull to go into in a post that’s already quite niche, I’ve been stuck in the UK since mid-October and only just managed to make a run for home.
It started in October when I had to fly back to the UK to deal with some things, hoping to be there long enough only to quarantine and fly back, only for a certain low-cost airline to cancel pretty much all its winter routes to France the day after I arrived. I decided to sit that out and wait until the end of my quarantine before making a decision. I could have left quarantine in the UK to travel back to France, but that seemed to defeat the object of going into quarantine in the first place, so instead I waited patiently.
More or less the day I came out of quarantine, France went back into lockdown until mid-December and the other airlines started dropping routes. I decided that it wasn’t worth risking a pre-Christmas return dash, so resigned myself to staying until after Christmas and organised train travel and accommodation for the 27th to London – to fit within the UK Christmas travel window – and then onward travel and lifts for two people for the 28th of December, making sure to get back to Angoulême at a time that meant nobody had to break curfew to collect me from the station.
Simple. All was looking good.
On the day I booked the trains from Saint Pancras to Angoulême, the difference between second and fist class was so slight that I booked us both in first, chose window table seats and made sure we left in the morning to have time to chill and do things when we arrived at the other end. I smugly thought nothing more of it until France announced it was closing its borders with the UK for 48 hours following the discovery of the UK strain. Sit tight, I thought, as it’s only for 48 hours and I was confident they’d figure something out.
It soon became apparent that I was not going to be able to get a PCR test done in such a way that I’d have my results to be able to travel on the Eurostar on Tuesday 28th because of Sunday services and Bank Holidays. The earliest appointment I could find was at a Boots in Telford that could test me on 4th January, so I booked that and changed my Eurostar reservation to be able to travel on the 7th at midday. I even booked my test for the Monday afternoon so that I’d still be within the 72 hours on the Thursday. Cunning. I cancelled the London train and the TGV and was lucky enough to have everything refunded.
There was a lot of frustration, but after I organised travel so that I could arrive at Saint Pancras with a negative CPR test in hand and board a train that would enable me to get to Angoulême before curfew, so I could get a lift home from the station; all I had to do was avoid all human contact until 14:45 in Telford on Monday 4th January. My negative test came in on the Wednesday morning.
I set out at very-fucking-cold o’clock on Thursday morning to get the first of five trains to get back to the south-west of France. The first was a short hop to Hereford at 6:17 to be there in time to catch the 07:09 West Midlands Railways service to Birmingham, which would have made for a pretty jouney had it not been stlil dark and foggy. Nonetheless, there was diamond dust in Hereford which made for a very sparkly and glittery wait for an otherwise uneventful journey to and predictably quiet wait at Birmingham New Street.
When I booked this journey, I’d stumbled across a rare fare anomoly where it turned out cheaper to to travel to Euston via Birmingham with Avanti West Coast than with GWR to Paddington – either via Newport or direct. In the days of Virgin Trains it always seemed to be prohibitively expensive to use Euston so I always went via Paddington. Noodles be praised, this time it also turned out to be the same price to book via Birmingham in first as via Newport in second, so naturally I seized that opportunity. And first class it was, as I had the entire carriage to myself on the 09:10 service from Birmingham New Street to London Euston.
Settling into my big comfy seat with a book, I was told by the train manager that my ticket included an at-seat meal, and as an aside that he missed his trolley. A few minutes later I tucked into my Welsh pork and leek sausage, cured bacon, tomato (they are the work of Satan), mushrooms, black pudding, and free range scrambled eggs with a mug of coffee and some orange juice as the frozen world flew past my window. I suspect that under normal circumstances it’s not the most picturesque of train journeys – Milton Keynes, I’m looking at you – but the little sprinklings of white everywhere gave it a suitably festive feel and there was even more to enjoy from my armchair seat as the sun rose as the colour started.
At 10:33, Euston was deserted. With two hours to spare, I walked straight to Saint Pancras and used my few precious minutes on the Euston Road to remove my mask, avoid strangers, and breathe in some fresh air without my glasses steaming up. After failing to find anything to do outside Saint Pancras other than feel the cold and take a couple of pictures, I put on a clean mask and checked in and sat in a pleasantly empty departures area until boarding started at about midday. The Eurostar left slightly earlier than its scheduled departure at 12:21. It was my first time on a new one. The seats are comfier than they look.
I had the vegetarian lunch – it was lovely. There was free booze and botomless coffee to go with my Bakewell Tart. There were four other people in my carriage. It was a bargain, and worth every centime of the extra 40€ to travel first all the way to Angoulême. Hurrah.
Paris was heaving. Ideally, I’d have avoided Paris and changed in Lille, but that was not to be so I braved the not-really-distancing métro line 4 to Montparnasse and tried not to breathe. Montparnasse is not my favourite station at the best of times, so I was delighted to find it less traumatic thanks to lower-than-usual passenger numbers. My 17:01 TGV was a bit shabby and the sockets didn’t work, but it redeemed itself with the mega-comfy Lacroix armchair seats a near-empty carriage. The train arrived only 25 minutes late.
Travelling at Christmas and New Year is generally horrible because it’s unfailingly cold, expensive, busy, and stressful. This time, I had a wonderful journey, under not the best of circumstances, because there were so few people travelling. I didn’t have to listen to half a mobile phone conversation or hear message notification, and even got free food. Twice.
Hereford – London Euston: 50€ (28€ 2nd)
London – Angoulême: 175€ (133€ 2nd)
I’ve been really sad to have to avoid all but essential travel since May last year, so I am thrilled that this first journey since then was so easy, cheap, and enjoyable. It took about twelve hours door to door and I was exhausted by the end of it, but as it’s probably the last long journey I’ll do for a while, I savoured every second of it.
Eurostar were brilliant and refunded my tier-4 friend’s ticket as a voucher. I’ve got until June to use it.
Fingers crossed.
