Our outbound journey, on
Thursday, was not without its little hiccups as (what should have been) a three and a half hour journey turned into
a more tortuous five hours of intermittent frustration. I’m not a good
traveller at the best of times and this was most certainly not the best!
We received a most friendly
welcome when we finally arrived at the Red Lion Hotel, in Radlett. The purpose
of our venture southwards was to attend the wedding of one of Helen’s nieces;
the wedding service was being held at St Paul’s Church in St Albans and the
reception at Shenley Cricket Centre, the Church approximately seven miles and
the reception venue just over one mile from the hotel we’d booked into.
The meal we had in the
hotel’s restaurant was really excellent, at the time I thought it almost made
the journey worthwhile. A most obliging waitress came back with the recipe for
the sauce served with our main course as I’d been so enthusiastic about it and,
she also printed out the route to be taken from the hotel to St Pauls.
After a most restless
night, I managed to make it down for breakfast even though sundry muscular and
joint pains had begun to kick in. The rest of the morning was spent lying down,
attempting to get some rest before we set off for the wedding. Come the time we
were due for departure to St Albans I knew
there was no way I’d be able to cope with neither the journey to nor the
ceremony itself.
My attempts to rest and
relax whilst ma belle had headed off to the wedding were thwarted by the
blaring/beeping of car horns (by the aggressive southern motorists as they
approached the mini-roundabout in close proximity to the hotel). By this time a
pounding headache and a disorientating spinning sensation, closely akin to that experienced when I suffered with labyrinthitis,
joined the by now familiar aches and pains searing through my limbs whilst the
ribcage was feeling rather bruised.
I should add that by this
time I’d begun to be overwhelmed by a sense of despairing self-pity, after all
this same Friday was also my birthday and here I was in an alien land feeling
quite alone and desolate. When my beloved returned from the wedding service I
reluctantly agreed to take a taxi to the reception. That decision proved
totally disastrous as I was unable to cope with the babble of conversation and
(joyous?) laughter – a total sensory overload. Within fifteen minutes we were
in a taxi back to the hotel.
Later in the evening I
felt almost ready to eat so, Helen and I ventured down through the bar to the
restaurant only to be informed that the restaurant was closed (due to the extra
bar business where the televised soccer seemed to be a major attraction and
shortage of staff). I muttered to ma belle, “typical, it’s just not my f…ing
day; it’s the most f…ing wretched birthday I’ve ever experienced, a bloody
nightmare”.
Suddenly a degree of
sanity overwhelmed me; I went to the Hotel Reception Desk to make an official
complaint that we, as paying guests, had not been informed that the restaurant
would be closed on a Friday evening. A few minutes later we were taken to the
restaurant where a waitress took our order and the chef came to check whether
and when we needed anything. This is what I consider service beyond the call of
duty. I’d mentioned to the waitress that part of the reason I couldn’t cope
with the noisy environment (of the bar) was because of my moderate M.E. As we
finished our desserts the waitress volunteered that we could exit the
restaurant via the kitchen, thus avoiding the bustling activity of the bar.
Although I didn’t manage
to attend either the ceremony or the reception, for which we’d made the journey
down, it was a delight to experience such real hospitality proffered by the Red Lion, Radlett, Herts.
Our return journey, on
Saturday morning, passed without a hitch – the exact reverse of the route we’d
intended to take on the outward journey – and we reached home in just three and
a quarter hours. Recuperation from the adventure may take quite some time but,
it’s slightly easier to cope with sundry ailments when at home in familiar
territory.
