Take the National Express
‘National Express’ – The Divine Comedy
When your life’s in a mess.
It will make you smile.
Got up early this morning with a slightly nervous feeling of excited anticipation, because today we would be travelling to Southampton and staying overnight before joining the wonderful M/S Borealis tomorrow morning! What a great start to 2024. 😊
Usually, when we travel to Southampton, we would go by train, or by luxury coach, or by car, but each of these had to be ruled out; we didn’t trust the trains with the current industrial action, cancellations, weather etc; there was no luxury coach offered this time from the North East to Southampton, and we couldn’t drive down and leave the car there because we wouldn’t be returning to Southampton. So, after considering various alternatives, we decided to settle for the good old National Express coach instead. It was very reasonably priced at £43.00 for both of us, one way.
At 8.45am or taxi arrived and we loaded our cases into the boot and settled ourselves in the spacious back seats of this BMW taxi. Our driver was friendly and it only took 10 minutes to get into Durham city centre, where we were dropped at the National Express bus stop, at which a small number of passengers and their suitcases were already waiting. We could expect a long, long day as we had to travel to London Victoria before our connection to Southampton, and we wouldn’t arrive there until eight o’clock tonight.
The coach arrived on time, and we loaded our luggage into the coach before boarding. Almost immediately, we experienced a bit of a fracas with one of the other passengers. ☹
Walking the length of the coach, we looked for two seats together, but all of the seats contained one passenger in the window seat. We had to go right to the rear of the coach where there were three seats, only one of which was occupied, leaving the two remaining seats for me and Trevor.
However, the guy who was sitting in the window seat, oversized earphones firmly in place, had spread his rucksack, water bottle and snacks across the other two seats, and was not at all pleased when we asked him to move them. He said he was expecting a companion to join him later on in the journey, and asked us, in a very belligerent tone, why we had walked the full length of the coach before sitting beside him. We explained that it was certainly not by choice, and that he shouldn’t be reserving seats anyway. The guy was most disgruntled and wasn’t afraid to let us know!
Somebody near us had obviously had a good Saturday night out, because there was a strong smell of alcohol fumes. The guy turned to Trevor and nastily asked him not to breathe on him, accusing him of “stinking of alcohol” which was certainly not the case. An argument of sorts ensued, and when I looked at my watch I saw that it was only 9.15am – we had been on the coach all of five minutes and already there was trouble!
Once the coach was underway, however, Trevor walked back down the aisle and looked for better seats; the best we could do was sit across the aisle from each other, but it meant that (a) we could leave misery-guts to his three seats and (b) we would be away from whoever it was who stunk of booze.
Once we picked up our bags and made to move, the guy was all smiles and matey-matey, so we moved up the coach near the middle, and settled in our seats. We hoped the journey could only improve from now on! 😊
After a couple of hours, we arrived at Leeds coach station, and our driver announced that we would have half an hour’s rest stop. As I hadn’t had any breakfast and I was good and hungry by now, we made a beeline for Gregg’s, where I enjoyed a tuna crunch baguette and Trevor had an egg and cress sandwich. We each washed them down with a white Americano, then went into WH Smiths to stock up on Haribo for the rest of the journey. 😊
Today was a big day for us in more ways than one, because the FA cup round featured our own favourite team Sunderland playing at home against their bitterest rivals, Newcastle United. I had brought my Samsung tablet and earbuds so we could live stream the game en route, and I spent some time testing the ear buds and the phone wifi hotspot to make sure we’d be able to watch the game.
However, when I set it all up on ITVx for the live broadcast, it say that the football wasn’t available on my device. This was very strange, because I could stream it OK from my phone. So Trevor sat with the earbuds in, watching the match from my phone screen, while I watched a couple of old episode of Footballers’ Wives on my tablet.
The final result of the football was Sunderland 0 Newcastle United 3. ☹
We sat there on the coach as it made its way inexorably towards London. Looking around at our fellow passengers, we could see it was a sign of the times, because just about everyone had tablets, laptops of phones on their tray tables, headphone and charging cables snaking out of them. Our driver had already asked us nicely (at least twice) to ensure that we used headphones/earbuds when listening to music or watching movies so that we didn’t disturb other passengers.
However, one guy seemed to think the rules did not apply to him, as he spent the time incessantly watching YouTube and TikTok videos at top volume, oblivious to the people around him. In addition, he had placed his large rucksack in the aisle, and we watched as several people, on their way to the loo at the back of the coach, tripped over it.
We were pleased when the coach eventually pulled up at Victoria Coach Station at 4.00pm, 20 minutes early. 😊
As we had an hour and a half to wait until our connection to Southampton, we went into the waiting room and cracked open a bottle of prosecco we had brought with us for the journey, dispensing it into a couple of plastic cups. I didn’t want a lot to eat, but I really enjoyed a bag of Monster Munch. 😊
After we’d demolished the prosecco, we still had 40 minutes to go, so we popped into the pub across the road and enjoyed a pint each, as well as a visit to the loo. We thought the WC in the pub would be more salubrious than the ones in the coach station. 😊
Soon it was time to board the Southampton coach for the two-and-a-half-hour journey to this famous south coast port. The coach was nicer than the one we’d just left, and we were able to get large seats with plenty of leg room near the front. I had an unimpeded view through the large wrap-around window.
By now it was obviously dark, and as we sat there looking out of the window it was quite mesmerising watching the red tail lights of the vehicles in front of us, as we sped along the motorway, interspersed with its reflective blue signs. I was pleasantly tired by now and enjoyed a light half-hour snooze. The coach was a nice temperature; it didn’t have the air conditioning blasting away as is the case on some coaches, and we enjoyed the journey, particularly once we spotted road signs counting down the miles to Southampton. 😊
At 8.00pm the coach rolled into Southampton, and we all alighted and collected our cases. We each carried a rucksack and had one suitcase each – I didn’t have a third suitcase containing nothing but my shoes this time! This is because we would be flying home at the end of the cruise, and there was obviously a limit to the number of cases as well as a weight limit. So I had to select only five pairs of shoes (not counting trainers and flip-flops) to last me for the 18-night cruise! 😊
As we were only staying in Southampton for one night, we’d booked a room at the nearby Ibis Budget hotel, which we had stayed at once before, in 2012. It’s only very basis and utilitarian (it reminds me of student accommodation!) but it was clean and comfortable, which was all we needed. The window of our room on the fourth floor looked out onto the harbour.
Dumping our bags in room 427, we thankfully used the loo then decided to go out and find the nearest Wetherspoon’s, which Google Maps told us was 0.7 miles away, or a 15-minute walk.
We set off towards the city centre, passing the huge Ikea on the way, and used Google to direct us to the pub which used to be a bank for many years, hence its name “The Standing Order”. As it was Saturday night, the pub was doing a lively trade. We ordered a drink and a selection of the small sharing plates for something to eat. We were quite near the door and every time someone went out for a smoke, or a group of people came into the pub or exited, a blast of cold January air came in, so we decided to move elsewhere. All in all, we stayed in the pub for four drinks, then took a slow stroll back to the Ibis and room 427. We knew we’d sleep really well tonight after a long, long day, but we were here at last and tomorrow we’d be starting our cruise!