In Dusseldorf... day two

This morning, around 0540hrs, I was awoken by an alarm, somebody else's alarm. It was a slow beeping sound that continued for the best part of 20 minutes. At first, I just stayed put, lying on my back looking at the ceiling, waiting, I suppose, not to hear it or, in other words, I was expecting somebody to depress a button and shut the thing off. Nothing happened. A deep sleeper, perhaps, I thought; or whoever occupies the room, which I'm guessing is the room next door to me on the left hand side, Room 212, had vacated the room and forgot to switch off his (or her) alarm. They could have left early but not taken their alarm clock with them when they checked out of the hotel. Or, I thought suddenly, they're dead. They died in their sleep or were murdered, and the murderer forgot or overlooked the fact that an alarm had been set and, for all intents and purposes, was now miles away, on the autobahn, perhaps, heading God knows where: to Russia or Kazakhstan or anywhere. They might be in the air as I write this, far from the crime scene and never to return. I started to imagine what scene might await whoever entered the room: a blood-stained bed, a knife protruding from the chest of the former occupant, his eyes staring blankly, like mine were, at the ceiling, but lifeless. I can't recall having been awoken in the dead of night by the sound of gunshot, but then if I was going to murder somebody in the dead of night in a place full of people sleeping in the centre of a big European city I think I'd use a silencer. Then the alarm stopped and I figured that my first guess was correct: the person in the room next to mine was a really, really heavy sleeper and probably needed those clocks from Dark Side of the Moon to get him up in the morning. But then the alarm resumed; it was clearly gathering strength for the long haul task of waking up its owner. Either that or my suspicion that somebody had died or had been murdered by a trained assassin was closer to the truth. Perhaps the alarm clock had drawn the short straw back in the store waiting for somebody to buy it. Perhaps it watched on helplessly as a huge, hairy, fat bloke with serious health issues waddled towards it and plucked it from the shelf. "Oh no! A lifetime of hard work," it thought as it reached the cash desk and to this day has regretted all of its bells and whistles that had prompted the sale in the first place.

Should I in some way get involved, I wondered to myself. Perhaps whoever occupies the room 'next door' is in some kind of trouble, unconscious, perhaps, having a heart attack, needing immediate medical attention and the people in the rooms on either side, including me, both having heard the alarm, did nothing. Perhaps as I write this he or she is breathing their last and are lying contorted and half naked on the bed. Perhaps they committed suicide, an overdose, and as I'm sitting here now, half naked myself but very much alive and awake, they are about to die, or they died hours ago?

But what to do? Call the front desk and tell them what's happened? Go next door myself and rather than waste time, kick down the door as if I'm Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible movie only to find an indignant individual, his face covered in shaving foam, headphones covering his ears, looking at me as if I'm half crazy and reaching for the phone to call security. "But your alarm, it wouldn't stop ringing. I thought you might be in some trouble," I might say in my defence, but perhaps he doesn't speak a word of English and instead is now advancing towards me holding some kind of weapon. Perhaps I turn and run, but not back to my room, down two flights of stairs to the front desk and out of the door, on to Karlstrasse dressed only in my Alfani boxers (poor man's Calvin Klein's) that I purchased about a year ago in a store in Chicago. The sound of police sirens reach my ears prior to my arrest and incarceration and as I sit there, alone, in my cell, a white towel draped over my shoulders, trying to come to terms with what has just happened, a small paper cup of steaming hot tea is put through the aperture in the cell door and I accept it gratefully. What next, I wonder? I'd have some explaining to do at home and at work, but the reality of the situation would be that I was only trying to help in some way. I'd be done, no doubt, for criminal damage of the hotel room door, that's all, but how humiliating it would all have been!

The alarm stopped and started a couple of times and just this second I heard somebody knock on the door and then enter the room. A woman's voice, but no screams so she obviously hasn't found a dead body, unless she's the sort of person that's calm, very calm, in stressful situations. There's a few noises of somebody, the woman I'm guessing, pottering around in the room, looking, perhaps, for the rogue alarm that is probably hoping its owner is dead so that it can be re-housed somewhere else, sent to a charity shop where it might find somebody a little more considerate, a little more alive.

It's 0626hrs and in four minutes my own alarm will sound and I'll have to take a shower, have some breakfast, find a shop that sells toothpaste and then head out for a day's work. I'll need some shaving foam too, although I'm used to relying on the soap provided. With two minutes to go until my own alarm sounds I hear the sound of the alarm in next door's room again. It sounds briefly but is then silenced, possibly by the woman who entered the room a few moments ago. She can't work the alarm. It might be a clock radio. I've never understood them; they seem to have a mind of their own. Perhaps the room was unoccupied, but the clock alarm, set by a previous occupant, somebody who checked out yesterday morning, had not been deactivated. I don't know and I don't care, but if when I leave my room in about half an hour to get on with those miserably mundane chores of hunting for toothpaste and shaving foam and a notebook, there are police in the room next door, I'll know that my initial suspicions were right and that I and the man or woman in the room on the other side of next door, not forgetting those opposite, all of whom are probably wondering what's going on, were wrong to simply surmise things and then decide to take no action whatsoever, based on the assumption that stuff like this doesn't happen to them.

Was it anything to do with an unanswered alarm clock?

When I did eventually leave the building after breakfast this morning a police car pulled up outside the hotel and two bulky-looking German policemen entered the hotel. Perhaps there was some truth in what I was thinking, I thought, as I walked in the direction of the railway station in search of a shop that might sell notepads.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.

In Dusseldorf... day one

I'd like to call myself a 'biscuiteer', but having mistaken a small, wrapped block of hard foam designed to clean shoes for some kind of free snack, possibly even a biscuit, I think I seriously failed the entrance examination.

I'm safely ensconced in my room at the Mercure Hotel and I thought I'd scout around for any freebies and that's when I encountered what I thought was a biscuit. Life can be infuriating. There's not much for free: a sachet of premium peppermint tea, two elongated sachets of instant coffee, some 'Zabielacz de kawy creamer' – that's powdered milk to you and me – and a couple of sachets of sugar. Oh, there's a bottle of Evian mineral water.

Hoteliers can get a little angry when I suggest that a locked minibar means they don't trust their guests, but I hate that unmistakable feeling of exclusion. There's a couple of locked doors, one being a small safe that has been rendered unusable, and the other some kind of fridge, which I'm guessing is either empty or jam-packed with beers and wines and wasabi nuts, but just not for me for some reason. I wonder if they thought, 'hold on, we've got Moggridge staying with us, lock the minibar and don't give him access to the mini safe either'. There must be some kind of policy decision that says 'lock the fridge and the safe and don't leave any keys floating around'. Annoying, but so far I have very little to complain about, well, apart from trying to find the elevator. One of them was out of order so I was directed along a corridor to where I would find another, but I got lost and had to ask for directions. It turned out the lift was up some stairs, on the first floor no less, so I figured what was the point? I walked instead and soon found my room, which was absolutely fine. There was a carpeted floor, a single bed, a flatscreen television, power points, a telephone (that worked!) and various leaflets. The bathroom was small but perfectly formed, there was space for my suitcase and suits and I was pretty pleased for another reason: I was under four minutes' walk from my all-time favourite Italian restaurant, Da Bruno, where I had booked my usual lonely table for one.

The flight over from Heathrow T5 was fine: some initial cloud, but fairly smooth and now that BA has decided, a la easyJet, to charge for its food I decided not to bother, opting instead for lunch at Huxley's (butterfly chicken and a glass of Pinot Noir followed by a single espresso and the bill). I'd arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and once lunch was out of the way I moseyed around getting angry about the assumption, made by airport operators the world over, that once people find themselves 'beyond passport control and through security' they're somehow able to afford Prada handbags and Rolex watches, not forgetting Burberry coats and sich like. I found a WH Smith's but couldn't find a book decent enough to warrant my attention and left for gate A18 empty-handed.

Bang on time, the train from the airport to Dusseldorf HBF...

Once I had landed in Dusseldorf, German efficiency kicked in: passport control was a breeze, jumping on board the Skytrain was simplicity itself and when I reached Dusseldorf HBF I walked for five minutes until I reached the hotel, from where I write this.

Time is moving fast and it's almost time for dinner so I'm skipping off to my favourite restaurant of all time, Da Bruno on Karlstrasse, which is under a four-minute walk away from the hotel's front desk. I couldn't ask for more if I tried. The reason I'm in the Mercure is because once, when I bowled nonchalantly into Da Bruno expecting a table and not getting one, I wandered around and eventually decided to have dinner in the Mercure's restaurant. Alright, it was a last resort and wasn't a brilliant meal but at least I knew there was a hotel close-by that was even nearer than the Burns Art Hotel a few doors along. The only reason I knew of Da Bruno's existence was because the receptionist at the Friends Hotel, which is located at the other end of Karlstrasse, recommended it to me about a year to 18 months ago. Now, whenever I'm in Dusseldorf, I book a table, like I did tonight.

After dinner (Parma ham with melon, pappardelle with mushrooms, two glasses of red wine and a cappuccino) I took a stroll in the direction of the Friends hotel, but turned left and found myself in a kind of Japanese area of town. I milled around for all of two minutes and then turned back, whistling that guitar riff from the Rolling Stone's Last Time single. "This will be the last time, maybe the last time I don't know..." and I can't remember the rest, or whether what I've just written is even correct, but I do remember the whining guitar riff.

Fortnum & Mason, where we all shop!!!

I'm back in the room. To be honest I now know when to stop; in the past I didn't have a clue and would happily prop up the bar drinking beer into the early hours – oh how foolish I was! It's not yet 10 o'clock and I'm already thinking about switching on the television, possibly drinking that bottle of Evian and then hitting the sack. While I drank the bottle of water I refrained from watching the television, but then, lying in bed, lights off, deep in thought about this and that, I felt restless enough to get up and start sub-editing this blog post and, as you can see, write something extra too, but now, as I look at the clock in the top right hand corner of my laptop's screen, I see that it's now ten past midnight and this time I really am shutting things down and hitting the sack.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.

To Westerham!

As always we met at the green and it wasn't long before we were on our way to Westerham, 'heads down' along the 269, Andy carrying that tennis racquet I lent him a week or two ago. I'd already realised that, once again, the weather was deceptive and that it was much colder out there than I thought. I wasn't wearing the old rust-coloured jacket, now ripped to shreds and old-looking, so initially I was cold and thinking to myself 'go back and put something else on'. But I persevered on the basis that the exercise of cycling would warm me up and sure enough, it did. I found myself powering along the road on the Rockhopper, loving every minute of the fact that this new bike of mine (I say 'new' but it's six months old – and no punctures!) was a great performer. It was a theme that stuck with me throughout the ride, the fact that coming back up Westerham Hill wasn't an issue. Alright, it's a chore, but a 'do-able' chore. Not that I ever failed to come up the hill (I never once got off the bike) but it's all about having the right bike for the job. For me the Rockhopper fits the bill.

Bluebells close to the 269

On the outward ride along the 269 we noticed a blanket of bluebells in the woods. Andy stopped to take the shot accompanying this post (right) and I continued towards Botley Hill, wondering when Andy would catch me up, surely before I reached the pub, I thought, but no, it wasn't until I was riding down Clarks Lane, passing the Tatsfield churchyard, that he rejoined me.

We pedalled fast into Westerham, past the sign welcoming us to Kent, the 'garden of England', and soon found ourselves sitting at our usual wooden table on the green opposite the Grasshopper and behind the statue of General Wolfe, eating BelVita chocolate chip biscuits and drinking tea.

The worse thing about cycling to Westerham is the ride back, but these days, as I said earlier, it's not that bad, thanks to the new bike, but was it ever that bad? No, of course not, it's just an effort, like all hills. It's psychological. The problem with the climb out of Westerham is simple: it's long and drawn out and continues all the way to Botley Hill, but if you prepare yourself for it, engage in conversation en route, it's soon over and that great sense of relief kicks in. Hills are there to be conquered and I'm often amazed, when I go out for short rides around the block with people or, like recently, chatting about cycling in the area, that they all say, "Ooh, not round here, it's too hilly." But that's the point, surely? Cycling, in many ways, is all about hills, even if based purely on the notion of what goes up must come down. Hills are not to be avoided, they're to be tackled. Half the fun of cycling, in my opinion, is cranking the bike down into a low gear and going for it, staying in the saddle (and on the bike) being the ultimate goal. And yes, it helps having the right sort of bike. But that said, when I was a kid I used to ride a single-geared bike and when the hills got bad I'd get off and walk up the hill, so what's the beef with these people who don't like hills?

I reached home at 1003hrs, the sun was shining and the rest of the day lay ahead of me. I padlocked the bike in the garage and got on with my day.