Grandior Prague - a fantastic hotel...

Some hotels are like the Tardis. From the outside they might share the road in which they are located with various stores and not really enjoy the luxury of a grand entrance, but once through the doors they open out like a huge canyon of glitz and glamour, mirrors and polished floors and occupy a vast space that goes back and back as far as the eye can see, but fail to offer any evidence of their size on the outside. If you took a walk around the block to check out the scale of the place from the outside you would find nothing to suggest that you hadn't been dreaming. 

View from room 512, Grandior Hotel

The Grandior Hotel in Prague is very much a Tardis. Once inside, you lose all sense of there being an outside world. You exist in another space all together and it's a great feeling. The streets and shops are gone and you find yourself in a corridor, passing numbered doors until you reach your own where you are plunged into a world within a world, your room, where silence reigns supreme, a made bed awaits your attention and a minibar too.

There was very little not to like at the Grandior Hotel. Great rooms, amazing food, fantastic hospitality all made my stay impeccable. The breakfasts were to die for: quark cakes for a start, poppy seed cakes, pastries, a variety of breads, hot and cold delights, cereals and yoghurts, a selection of teas, scrambled eggs, beans, bacon, sausages, roasted potatoes (yes, roasted potatoes), mushrooms, you name it. Lunches were good too and I'm guessing dinner was also top notch, but I never experienced it, much to my dismay.

Checking in and out was straightforward and the conference I was running went smoothly thanks to the hotel staff who pulled out all the stops, offering sweet and savoury snacks to delegates during the breaks and generally being there when called upon. 

Room 512, Grandior Hotel

I was staying in room 512 on the fifth floor. The bathroom was luxurious and my only complaint was the ferocity of the shower and the fact that I managed to soak everything as soon as I switched it on; it was so powerful, like a Karcher jet washer. I felt as if I was sand-blasting myself rather than having a warm, gentle shower. Sometimes I couldn't face it until after breakfast. That would be my only gripe, everything else was perfect.

I arrived on Monday 6th June and checked out on Friday 10th June and then flew home with easyJet, not British Airways. And you know what? The food offering was better and the flight too, it was smooth all the way, sunny with scattered cloud and we flew at 38,000 feet. I read Middle England by Jonathan Coe, sipped on a green tea and munched on a KitKat, that was lunch basically. It was good to be flying into Gatwick and not Heathrow. The former means that the plane runs just north of the south coast and then turns inland to touch down, there's no circling the airport half a dozen times before landing and once on the ground it's a short walk to the train station and regular trains into London. I was home by 1530hrs and sitting in the garden finishing off my book. The big question is what to read next.

No, I won't jump, I need breakfast!

Monday 6th June, Flight BA860 from London Heathrow to Prague...

Waiting to take off...

First, let's get all the commercial crap out of the way. I hate it. As soon as I am through security – which this time was relatively painless – I found myself surrounded by booze and perfume and then watches and expensive leather goods, clothes shops and so forth. I was elated to note that shops like Tiffany, Bvlgari and other big brand names I'm having difficulty remembering were all empty, no customers whatsoever, it was so heartening. I've always hated the false notion that air travel is somehow glamorous and that we should all be considering some Beluga caviar before we fly (another shop, incidentally, that had no customers, much to my amusement, all those oysters going to waste, I thought).

Unfortunately for me I'm still on antibiotics, thanks to my last trip abroad. The course finishes tomorrow, but I almost forgot and ordered a chicken burger, which I swiftly cancelled, keeping only the mineral water in order to swallow my pill at the desired time, which just so happened to be at lunch time. I had the prospect of not eating for one hour, which was very depressing especially when I later discovered that the inflight service consisted of a bag of crisps. If I wanted anything else, I was told, I should have ordered something on the BA shopping app prior to flying, except that nobody told me about this. Next time I'll buy food before I fly, I thought. The other option was to use the app to order something from the limited selection they had on board, which was rubbish and consisted only of coffee and a couple of biscuits. And considering that I was now at 30,000 feet and the option of pre-ordering was out of the question, it was all I had left. I made the cabin crew work. I had many questions and I needed them to help me use the app in order to buy an awful cup of black coffee and those biscuits. The coffee came in the shape of a coffee bag which I had to place in a paper mug of hot water they had given me. The coffee was awful, no taste at all despite claiming to offer 'notes of dark chocolate and burnt caramel'. I squeezed the bag as per the instructions on the back but it made no difference, it was still absolutely awful. So much for their 'Signature Blend'. 

Looking down at the M25...

To use the app, the cabin crew told me I had to take the phone off airplane mode (which made me a little apprehensive as I imagined the plane suddenly nose-diving and the captain coming out and saying "whoever's turned their phone off airplane mode, switch it back on" and then the plane levelling out). Nothing of the sort happened, fortunately. 

The biscuit and the coffee set me back a fiver and didn't represent value for money in my world. The annoying thing here, of course, was that once again, I found myself being forced to eat rubbish. I had no dinner on Sunday night because there wasn't any food, no breakfast for the same reason the following morning and then no lunch because I had to take an antibiotic at a specific time and I was really looking forward to the inflight meal, but it wasn't to be thanks to British Airways, the airline that likes to disappoint its customers.

The flight was only 90 minutes and as I looked at  my watch, I realised we had started our descent. As soon as we land I'm going to grab something decent to eat, I thought to myself. I was really glad that I got the cabin crew working on that app. I was like a dog with a bone.

The captain said the weather conditions in Prague were 'cheerful', which was more than could be said for BA's food offering. The muddy water they passed off as coffee was a joke as, indeed was the whole experience. I think the crew thought that nobody would be bothered to use the app, but I proved them wrong. They're probably still cursing me as I write this; at least I hope they are!

BA's idea of lunch!

Outside the window and far below me, there were green fields and sunshine and scattered cloud. When I looked at my watch, there was around 15 minutes until we landed. I could see little villages below and the usual patchwork quilt of corn fields and grass fields dissected by narrow country lanes and peppered here and there with forests, the occasional river and even a few wind farms. Ten minutes to landing.

Once down, getting through security was a doddle, so was baggage reclaim and then I spotted a cafeteria, a spacious place with hardly any customers. There was a servery counter so I ordered a pasta and chicken dish and a decent dessert and chilled for a few minutes before finding a taxi and heading for the Grandior Hotel.

Postscript: Just going back to British Airways again, one thing I always used to enjoy was reading John Simpson's column in the High Life magazine, but now it's not available as a print publication – or so it seems. Now it's an app that you can read (I'd imagine with huge difficulty) on a mobile phone. I didn't bother. Fucking apps!

Westerham and Tatsfield with Andy...

Before I start this post, a brief explanation as to why I'm even writing this sentence. Basically, there's some kind of formatting issue which means that if I try to make the next paragraph the start of this post, it suddenly increases the font size and centres the paragraph and it looks awful. I've spent an age trying to work out how to get it right and the only way I can think of is to fill the space with text like this. Anyway, here's the post...

It is possible to draw an invisible line between the time prior to my recent trip to the USA and the time since I've returned. Before I left the UK, I had things kind of under control. For a start, I had found a routine of sorts that involved a ride to Oxted where I would chill out with a mug of tea or coffee and possibly a small chocolate bar. Such chilled out behaviour would take place in either a Starbucks in the middle of town or a Caffe Nero at the top of the High Street close to Pizza Express. I loved it. Once sat down at whatever establishment I had chose I would simply shut down for a while; I would sip tea, watch passers-by and generally relax. I might take a look in a charity shop afterwards and then I would prepare myself for the journey home, which would involve climbing Titsey Hill or Chalkpit Lane depending on how I felt, the latter being the steeper option.

 

Andy, Westerham, Saturday...

On my return from the USA, however, things changed. For a start I arrived home with an infected foot; it was bright red and swollen and, as a result, I was given antibiotics. I worked at home for a bit and I stayed off of the bike, although I still managed a ride to Tatsfield Village to meet Andy for his first ride since breaking his hip (see previous post). In all honesty, the foot was well enough to ride the bike, but the infection persisted and I was given another box of pills. I rarely take pills, not even an Aspirin for a hangover because I no longer suffer from them having given up drinking five years ago. But now I found myself taking one pill every four hours. I had to find a pen and paper and note down the times of each pill and I wasn't allowed to eat until one hour afterwards, which, in a way, disciplined me to slow down on eating generally, ie I couldn't simply stuff my face all day as I've always been prone to do; and this was good as it put me back in the frame of mind to starting dieting a little, lose a few pounds. I'm certainly below 13 stone and if possible, I plan to get down to 12 stone, although that ain't going to be easy.

It's funny how food sets out to ambush me... or perhaps that should be that bad food sets out to ambush me; take last Wednesday, for example. When I arrived home from work I found a huge spread of food including ham sandwiches and sausage rolls and as this seemed to be all there was for dinner, I tucked in and later regretted consuming both the ham sandwiches and the two sausage rolls as I normally avoided reformed meat and I certainly steer clear of sausage rolls. And let's face it, the whole 'meal' was the worst kind: white bread for a start and we all know how bad sausage rolls can be. Then there's visiting mum. I tend to resign myself to eating crap at mum's, normally a slice of fruit cake or, as is currently the case, a chocolate digestive or five and possibly even a KitKat, not forgetting the tea which, these days, has a distinctly weird taste to it; in fact, it has been said that mum bleaches everything (cups, plates and I often wonder whether the kettle gets roped in too). Outside of visiting mum and being ambushed, I can pretty much avoid it and I've stopped eating wrapped chocolate bars so things have kind of got off to a reasonable start.

An amazing 14.9g of sugar!!!

But things certainly haven't been the same since I returned from the USA. I'm still fairly stressed for a start, the pills keep me focused on taking them (the pills) and I'm off to Prague on yet another trip. I wish I could take the train and probably could, but it would have meant leaving earlier than I have to if I rely upon aviation. Train travel is by far the most civilised form of transport, but it's much more expensive than travelling by air, but that's another story.

This weekend I agreed to meet Andy in Westerham. I found him in the Costa, or rather outside in the fresh summer air, and we enjoyed chilling and chatting like we used to prior to Andy's unfortunate accident. He has, I hasten to add, completely recovered and is all set to ride to Cornwall in a couple of weeks from now.

On the ride home, just before I reached Botley Hill, I stopped. I was feeling a little faint and decided to call home for a lift back. In retrospect I shouldn't have bothered, but I thought (wrongly) that I had been over-exerting myself whilst taking antibiotics and shouldn't have been riding the bike - or this is what I was told when my lift arrived. Meanwhile, I'd walked the short distance to the Botley Hill Farmhouse where I sat down and ordered a pot of tea to revive me. The truth of the matter is that I felt mildly dizzy probably because I'd started putting drops of olive oil in my ears in an effort to clear the blockage caused by excessive ear wax, a constant problem for yours truly. I really ought to sort this out as it makes going to sleep at night an unpleasant experience; as soon I'm lying down I lose all hearing and it would take a herd of elephants to wake me and even then I probably wouldn't hear them. To cut a long story short I should have chilled with the tea and possibly a cake of some sort and then slowly completed the journey by bike. But I'd made the call and soon enough I was driving home with the bike (minus its front wheel, which was in the boot). Later I discovered that I could exercise whilst taking antibiotics, which meant I could carry on riding the bike. 

Tea at Sheree's on Sunday morning

The next ride was supposed to be Westerham, but I figured it might be best to take things a little easy. I texted Andy and suggested Tatsfield Village, setting off around 0800hrs. When I got there I found Andy inside drinking coffee. I ordered a tea and (perhaps foolishly) a small packet of oatmeal biscuits to dunk in the tea. We sat and chatted about all sorts of things, one subject being 'joy'. Joy in the sense of not having any since I gave up drinking, joy in the sense of losing out on 'the good things in life' just because I discovered last week that a can of Pellegrino Limonata (a drink I enjoyed over ice in Pittsburgh) contains 14.9g of sugar. I went back to the office and told one of my colleagues, stating that I won't be having any more of them and she suggested that I'm cutting off all elements of joy from my life. She has a point. I recently tweeted that fun had left the building since I stopped drinking, but added that so have the hangovers and humiliations. Enjoying a drink, said Andy as we sat in the cosy environment of Sheree's Tearoom, was a media construct, we're all supposed to enjoy drinking but, as my doctor said, alcohol is a poison and I could easily do without that large glass of Merlot in my favourite Italian restaurant in Dusseldorf, I didn't need to drink to enjoy myself and that's the point: nobody needs alcohol to enjoy themselves so don't be hoodwinked by the media and the drinks company advertisements on the television. I'll never start drinking again, I said, because the defeat of starting again would be too huge to cope with and in all honesty it's not even that: I've gone five years, I no longer need it and that makes me realise that I never needed it, I was told I needed it, I was coerced into it by advertising, by peer group pressure, it was expected of me, it was what people do, what blokes to to enjoy themselves, and the myth lasted years until five years ago I finally stopped for no other reason than an inner ear infection. I feel better, put it that way, and for that reason alone I won't be going back, I don't need to, I've broken the invisible barrier and come out the other side unscathed.

Mist along The Ridge on Sunday

The weather in Tatsfield was wonderful and had been all the way there; it wasn't sunny and warm, far from it, it was relatively cold compared with Friday's ride to Westerham, there was a fine rain, everything was green and misty and in some many ways it was perfect cycling weather. Andy reminded me before I left to bring lights and he was right. As I rode the 269 towards Botley Hill a mist descended and it didn't pass until I was in Tatsfield.

Fallen tree blocks the way home...

Andy and I chatted our way through a second cup of tea and another coffee (not forgetting another packet of oatmeal biscuits for me - not so much an ambush but a deliberate decision based purely on the fact that I was enjoying our conversation so much that I simply desired biscuits and a second pot of tea). I was driven, perhaps, by the joy of the moment.

I emerged victorious on the other side...

I rode home along The Ridge and through Woldingham, riding downhill on Slines Oak Road. A motorist flagged me down and told me that a tree had fallen across the road. "I doubt that even a bike will get through it," he said, but I figured I ought to check things out for myself. On reaching the tree I initially thought that he and another motorist who said the same thing were right, but I found a way through, which took me around five to 10 minutes. I emerged unscathed and victorious on the other side and continued the ride home. The mist had all but vanished and it wasn't long before I was home and working out when I needed to take my next pill.