Roll With It

By Falmike

A Day Out (From Cornwall)

Twickenham Stadium is 225 miles from our home and in order to relax and enjoy the weekend as well as avoiding Congestion, ULEZ, parking, other sundry charges and the regular Cornish weekend road closures we opted for the train; first mistake.
Up at 5:45am for a shower, coffee and bacon sandwich before heading off to Falmouth station for the 7:18 train to Truro. We were 500m from the door when the text message arrived from GWR; “Train Cancelled”, a quick about turn, home, into the car and a rally drive out to Truro to catch the train after parking and paying the 48 hour parking charge.
With a slightly heavy rucksack, 3kg of Trail Mix carried in the event of Armageddon or a Zombie Apocalypse, we boarded to be met with; “sorry seat reservation function not working”, that led to a chorus of complaints for the next 4.75 hours as disgruntled passengers boarded to find that the seat reservation on their ticket had someone sitting in it.
Arriving at Reading Station on international match day to be greeted by “GWR apologise but a replacement bus service is operating between Reading and Bracknell”, Mrs S and I were not unduly worried we were going to get there at some point.

Those that have been to Twickenham Stadium will know what the seats are like, we got to ours and the upping & downing to admit late comers culminated with the two seated on my left arriving as the ref blew to start the match. I’m not slim but both looked like they could lose a few pounds, she had chips, curry and a sausage roll, he had two four pint carriers. They squeezed past and looked at their seats and back at me and the lad sitting the other side of them. Trying to watch two people, each three feet wide trying to fit into two, two foot seats drew mirth from all around. Talk about having your personal space invaded but I definitely wasn’t for yielding half of my seat.

If you were English the ref was poor in the first half and that with matey next to me complaining he was having to sit sideways to fit in as he drank his six pints and ate his way through his food and it was making him uncomfortable, I felt little sympathy. 
Our row had their view regularly blocked as the row in front of us were up and down in their seats like broken Jack-In-The-Boxes as a youngster with prostate problems, at least that was my understanding as he went to the loo around every ten minutes, passed to go out.
Nevertheless Mrs S and I had a great time, at no point did I think England would lose and the Guinness self service machines are brilliant.

Would we go again - of course we would, I haven’t had that much fun for ages.

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