Pippa's Trip on a Train to London

I boarded a train to London for this weeks podcast during the Coronation celebrations and I took Pippa with me.  Listen to where we went and how Pippa was on the train and whether I would take her again. 

Transcript

·       Pippas Trip to London on the Train

May the 3rd 2023 it is just a few days before the coronation of king Charles III, I had taken this week off to enjoy a holiday in the sunshine on my canal boat, before deciding to do some work on the inside of the boat, as the weather was not that warm.  Having taken a week off work, I decided that I wanted a day off from the renovation work, having become really aware of how much stress and anxiety that it can cause you when you have a problem with something and you are on your own trying to work out how to solve it, chatting it through with someone else is really useful but I think because I am an only child I am not great at asking for help with things. I must try harder at that as people usually like giving their thoughts and opinions about things. All the thoughts revolve around in your head and get jumbled up, if you walk away and do something else, the answer usually just comes to you.

As part of my next podcast series starting in October, I wanted to start going out and about with Pippa, so I thought I would try taking Pippa on a trip to London. I really enjoy travelling and I want to be able to do that with Pippa and she is quite big and strong now, so I don’t want to leave her with two OAP’s unless I really have to.  Pippa and I got up early, had a large breakfast, then I took her on a short stroll before loading her into the car, clipping her seatbelt on and off we went to Crewe station.  You can get the train to London Euston from Chester station, but you have to change at Crewe and it’s a bit of a faff, so I have always just driven to Crewe.  The journey to Crewe from Chester by car is about 45 minutes, as we left early there wasn’t much traffic and we arrived in plenty of time. The first car park barrier had a broken ticket button, so I had to reverse out and into the next one while two cars watched probably thinking that I was completely crazy.  I parked the car in the car park and walked the short way to Crewe station.

I had booked us on the 8.13 train with West Midlands Railway, checking that dogs were allowed on their trains, free of charge, which they were. I scanned my ticket to open the barrier opting for the wider luggage one with Pippa, getting slightly anxious as it wasn’t working until someone pointed out I was trying to get in the out barrier, which wasn’t like me, then my ticket wouldn’t scan and the man on the gate had to do it, it was then I met a couple of members of staff and they could see I was a bit anxious and they showed me where the lift was, chatted to me which really put me at ease and  stroked Pippa as we travelled down in the lift with them, I have been to Crewe station probably about a hundred times before and had no idea there was a lift, let alone where it was.  

They gave me directions to platform 7 and Pippa and I boarded the train that was already on the platform.  There is a seat with more foot room in the front of the carriage, to the right of the door and it was empty, so we sat in that seat and Pippa sat on the floor, very interested in the family at the table next to us who had brought a picnic, fortunately for a Labrador she is not actually that greedy and soon settled down with the encouragement of a couple of biscuits, I had had packed a fair few into my rucksack. As we headed off on the journey of just over two hours the train did start to get busier at every stop, Pippa did bark at a couple of blokes getting on the train and on the platform at the start of the journey and she was not too sure about the doors opening and beeping and trains rushing past us on the track, but she soon settled down and an Italian student was happy to come and sit next to us Pippa happily accepting any attention on offer, he clearly liked dogs.  At this point Pippa was half under my seat and snoozing only waking up at the next station stop, supervising who was getting on and off the train to see if they met with her approval. 

We arrived in London Euston at about 10.30am and set off on our walk around London, I had printed out a map and we tried to use that in favour of using google on my phone. But I kept getting lost, having to go into google to find out where we were and if we were still going in the right direction for the centre and it took us about an hour to walk a Google Maps 15 minutes so I ditched the paper and joined all the other tourists who were also using phone satellite navigation to get about.  Shortly after this, we found Regent Street and Oxford Circus and saw all the flags up for the coronation and it was really nice to see the Union Jack flag flying high, Pippa and I walked through Mayfair close to the Townhouse hotel that I stayed in already thinking about my next stay in that hotel.  Pippa and I then headed to Hyde Park where we wandered about for a while, there were lost of people out and about walking and running or cycling on electric and no electric bikes a couple of Cocker Spaniels were racing about in the sunshine trying to get Pippa to play even though she was on the lead.  I would have let her off but she is so large and very clumsy with smaller dogs, she just tries to chase them and pounce on them in the same way she does with Winston the cat, who doesn’t really appreciate that either.

Pippa and I then headed off to look at some more of London and walk along the Old Brompton Road among many other streets, just enjoying the atmosphere and sunshine as it was really warm in the capital, I didn’t want to do anyone of the usual sites with her, as I have seen a lot of those recently and instead opted to look at London differently, looking at the streets and the gardens and the architecture of the buildings and just enjoying being out for the day in the sunshine away from everything, living with the oldies, the boat renovation problems, the fact that I don’t have a house and don’t know where I want to live yet.  

What I really noticed walking with Pippa was that people were walking and smiling past us, a few asked if they could stroke Pippa, some mistaking her for a male dog. One man laughing, at least I think he did and she took an interest in his lunch on a table at the edge of the pavement, there was lots of good humour in London and I don’t really remember it being that way when I lived there all those years ago, it seems to have really changed as a city.  After a couple of hours wandering about taking some pictures, we headed back towards Hyde park and past the Household Calverley head quarter, where there are what seems to been some sand gallops Hyde Park, I noticed that someone was lunging a horse in an arena there, I smiled thinking of the idea of someone working a horse in the centre of London, the same way that I did with my pony in the mornings in the countryside, but if horses are ridden here then it makes sense to school and lunge them in the conditions that they will be ridden in, so that they get used to all the noise of the city, cars, planes,  people and crowds, it is what you call a de-sensitization process. Its is a bit like that with Pippa on our day out, getting her used to trains and lots of people.  Pippa and I then sat next to strangers by the serpentine in Hyde Park for a while enjoying the atmosphere, there were lots of things being built and put up in preparation for the coronation.  Pippa seems to quite like having her picture taken now as well and will happily sit at the end of the lead while you take a few snaps.    We then headed back into the park to play ball, Pippa can really have a good run about here and I found myself surprised to realise that you can have a dog in a city if there are parks that you can take them to, it encourages you to get out and about and ironically I had a better walk with Pippa in Hyde Park than I do normally with Pippa, as you can’t walk in famers fields, bridle paths have no grass for her to run about on and our local park is really small.  It really has given me a lot to think about when I come to choose where I want to live, yesterday I thought I wanted a garden, now I think that I would like to live by some nice parks as it will be better, less maintenance and easier to meet new people and strike up conversations with them, if I am in a garden I might not leave it.  It also got me to thinking about my future as I know if I stick with the same old people I will end up alone as I didn’t find anyone I liked in Chester the first time around, its not the right place for me.  I know that I need to follow my uncles advice and go out and see a lot more of the UK and find a place that I want to be in then, after robbing a bank, buy a house there. Although at the start of this podcast I mentioned that I need to let someone look after me in a relationship this time, that is not something that is on my agenda yet, I am ok on my own, it is not in the plan I need to find my own way for a bit, I have never lived on my own for any length of time and I want to do that for a while. There will be more single people in towns though, more people to have lunch and drinks with, I am in the suburbs, and this is the place for families not for singletons, so I am decided that I need to find a nice town with parks to live in, I can always find a nice loan home for Merlin, I won’t sell him again.

After playing ball for a while, Pippa and I headed into Mayfair, and toured around some of the lovely gardens like Mount Street gardens, which I would never have found had I been on the usual tube journey rather than walking across London with Pippa.  You can take dogs on the tube, but you need to use the lift, for obvious reasons you have to carry dogs on the escalators, and I am not sure that carrying Pippa would comply with any known health and safety regulations, if I was even able to pick her up. So on this trip I opted to just walk with her instead, after all she had a lot to take in with the trains and the station and all the people in London, but she took it all calmy in her stride and I was really proud of her.  We headed back along regent street and looked at the food that was being sold by a host of carts before heading to regents park, ignoring the no dog sign, its a park for heavens sake why can you not take a dog in as long as you clear up and mess they might do which Pippa didn’t anyway, I can’t really see what the issue was and we were not the only dog walker in the park either.  Pippa make friends with an Afghan hound at one point, I don’t think I have ever seen one of those up close, it looked   n it went to the groomers on a weekly basis.  We also saw a dog walker walking six dogs of different shapes and size of yellow on a lead in one park, it reminded me of the clip in I think it was Cocktail when Tom Cruise is returning from the war on a bus and sees a dog walker with several dogs, fortunately Pippa didn’t pull me over to play with them, all six were perfectly behaved on the leads, it was quite an impressive sight.  

After basking in the sun for a while, we headed back to the train station only to find that our train had been cancelled, however there were some really friendly staff at the concourse in the centre of Euston who advised that we could get the next train back to Crewe, which was in an hours’ time. Pippa and I headed off to the toilets.  Pippa obviously just kind of goes anywhere outside, although her preference is on the road, I did have loads of poo bags and hand gel with me.  I had to take her in the cubicle with me, I just hooked her lead onto the hook on the door which kept her out of the way and worked very well.  Hands washed and she was ok with the blow hand dryer, I then headed off for some food, there are loads of accessible food places in Euston and I got a drink and a large sausage roll. A guy started chatting to me as I put handwash on and Pippa was trying to eat it. There are now quite a lot of seats at Euston to sit on and wait, the train was a bit over an hour late it seems a freight train had broken down somewhere along the way causing a few issues.  When the train eventually came there were a lot of people and crowds to get through, but she wasn’t bothered at all and as we are used to running together pulled me with my now aching feet having done over 30,000 steps to the end of the platform. There wasn’t a seat available to se stood for most of the journey, a guy took his headphones out to chat to us and give Pippa loads of attention.  There was a really good looking guy on one of the seats smiling at her as well, then when the train emptied there was a seat next to him and he said to me you do want to sit next to me and I wandered over, he looked a lot like Christian Gray out of that film, he loved Pippa, he had a husky cross and we chatted for a bit, until he hopped off at Nuneaton not before asking where were getting off, if you ever hear this, hello, it was really nice to meet you.  

We eventually reached through, went through the barrier ok and paid for our car park ticket, Pippa was pulling as I think she was keen to get back to the car and get home for her tea as we were a couple of hours later than planned. We both really enjoyed our day out though and I would take her to London again, I was a little bit worried when the train was cancelled, but I thought that I would have to deal with these issues if I do more travelling with her, next time I will take her tea in a sandwich way and buy a folding bowl.  I have just ordered her a harness with Pippa on it, so that if people see us out and about they will know who were are.  If you see a black Labrador with a red harness on check for Pippa and if its us, head over and say hi.  I would probably do a bit more research before the next trip to try and find out which places, I can take Pippa into and find a couple of pubs that accept dogs, or maybe not, as after finishing writing this and not really wanting to do any painting tomorrow I am already thinking of taking her somewhere else, probably in the car this time though.  The good news is that I will also get a refund on the ticket for my train that was cancelled as well, which I will be spending on travelling somewhere else with Pippa.