Back home

We rise a little earlier today. Around eight. As we need to check out by eleven.

I haven’t had the greatest of nights. I’ve been coughing like crazy. It’s a surprise I have any lungs left.

A breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato, toast and tea.

Dolores fetches my usual breakfast. It’s the breakfast I always have in Britain. When I can. Egg, bacon and tomato. With toast, too, of course. I wouldn’t want to disrespect the eggs.

Back in our room, we just about have time to pack before checkout time. And for Dolores to make sandwiches for the train. She’s always thinking ahead.

Checked out, I remain guarding our bags while Dolores goes to the supermarket to buy contraband. Joints of meat, crumpets, cheese. Stuff you can’t easily find in Amsterdam.

She returns with bulging bags of goodies. Everything we want to take back to Amsterdam.

Once the stuff has been absorbed into our luggage, we do what comes natural. Which is to trail down he pub. The Euston Flyer, again. As it’s on the way to St. Pancras. It makes lots of sense. And Dolores wants a couple of farewell pints of London Pride. Everyone wins.

A pint of London Pride and a pin of ESB.

“I haven’t been coughing as much today.” I say optimistically over my pint of ESB.

“That’s good, Ronald.”

“Maybe I’m over this cold.”

“It didn’t sound like that last night. I expected to find bits of  your lungs all over the duvet this morning.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Relieved. I think.”

“That’s reassuring. Really, really reassuring.”

I’ve prepared a special drink for the train journey. I’ve decanted my half bottle of whisky into the remainder of my litre of cola. So much more dignified than swigging whisky straight from the bottle.

“Do you want to eat something, Ronald?”

“I wouldn’t mind.” It is about 5 hours since I ate breakfast.

“What do you fancy?”

“I wouldn’t mind a pie. But that comes with mash.” I’m not a big mashed potato fan.  “Would you eat my mash?”

“No.”

“I thought you liked mash?”

“Not from a packet.”

“It won’t be from a packet.”

“I prefer my own mash.”

“You really don’t want to eat my mash, do you?”

“No.”

No pie for me, then.  “I’ll get a sandwich.”

A fish finger sandwich.

Which I do. A fish finger sandwich. Which comes with chips. Dolores just gets some onion rings.

“How’s your sandwich, Ronald?”

“Quite nice. But it isn’t a pie.”

“There’s more to life than pies.”

“Is there?”

The sandwich is pretty good. The fish fingers are solid lumps of fish. But it’s not a pie. My pie needs have remained frustratingly unfulfilled this trip.

We have a second pint. Pride and ESB again.

“You know that they’re the same recipe?”

“Really?”

“Yes, they’re brewed together.”

“How does that work?”

The bar of the Euston Flyer.

I explain parti-gyling to Dolores. It fills in the half hour we have left in the pub quite nicely. I think I may have lost her half-way through. When she starts messaging the kids. But I believe I got over the basic principle of the technique.

I start coughing as soon as we get to St. Pancras. It gets worse as we queue for all the formalities. Ticket check, security, two lots of passport control. Not much fun one-handed.

Then the standing. As all the seats are occupied until the next Paris train boards. I find standing so much fun nowadays.

The train is totally full. At least, our carriage is full. Even before we’ve left the station, I’m coughing up a storm. With occasional echoes from other passengers. I must be making everyone’s journeys.

I’m sitting peacefully on the bog, when there’s a tapping on the door. Presumably the conductor.

“Yes?” I say.

After more tapping, I hear the door being unlocked. I quickly pull up my kecks and make myself decent.

It is the conductor. And, from the look on her face, it’s clear that I’m not who she’s looking for. Dolores tells me that a bag thief, pursued by the bags owner and the conductor had run past.

“How dramatic.” Dolores says.

“Almost as dramatic as the conductor catching me with my kecks down would have been.”

After Brussels, the train is much emptier. And we move to roomier seats. Where I finish off my special drink just as we pass through Schiphol.

Amsterdam seems very quiet as we snake through it homewards in a No. 2 tram. Even though it’s only 23:30.

Andrew is awake. Not sure if he’s just got up or is about to go to bed. It’s midnight. And I’m still coughing.



The Euston Flyer
83-87 Euston Rd.,
London NW1 2RA,
https://www.eustonflyer.co.uk/