A mostly heavenly weekend

Well, I starting typing to you whilst freezing - nearly to my death :P - on a train platform at Cardiff Central station in Wales...balancing my laptop partly on my leg and partly on my suitcase. And since I wear skirts all the time now, I was also wearing sad and not warm tights. My train was delayed by 57 minutes, plus, I was there 38 minutes before the scheduled departure time. In my lucky world, it went from 13 minutes delayed to 57 about 4 minutes after I got there. Not that I'd have remembered to check whilst still at my warm and lovely hotel, sipping drinks at the bar, but still. After I finally got so cold I could no longer type, I gave up and paced for awhile, trying to stay warm. It didn't seem that there was anywhere with heat at the station. I noticed though, 8 minutes before my train was due, that there was a heated waiting room on the platform. Oh. Anyway, now I'm on the train and warm. Yay.

You should all feel special too, because I couldn't type with my glove on, so I was extra cold just so I could blog. :P Yes, I said glove, singular. Some of you lovely people have watched me do it, but I type (very quickly), one-handed. So my lucky nontyping left hand was warm.

Anyhoo, so, it's been a mostly very lovely and relaxing weekend, with a few glitches and weird bouts of good luck. And happily, I've got one more day to rest and veg.

My weekend began with a stroll over to Piccadilly, where I bought a raspberry biscuit encased in dark chocolate at La Maison du Chocolat. Then I killed a little more time at my beloved Fortnum's before a long and unsuccessful trek around the side streets, in pursuit of a copy of The Times. So finally, I went to my destination - the Ritz, where I had 19:30 afternoon tea reservations. A weird time for a tea, but oh well, it seemed like it would be a lovely start to my weekend when I booked it a couple weeks ago. And I was excited to read just on Thursday that the 19:30 seating is a champagne tea, with a complimentary glass of champagne. But, being quite early, I headed to the bar (after snagging one of the papers the Ritz had laying out) and whilst savouring the total, utter elegance of the bar, I sipped a lemon meringue martiniesque thing. Very lovely.

The tea itself was really lovely, but no one offered me champagne :( They did offer endless sandwiches and cakes...and I ate so many sandwiches that I was quickly in pain :P I couldn't even finish my scones or my first helping of cakes. Oh well. Lesson learned in that department: when teaing at the Ritz, don't eat anything else beforehand. At all. All day.

Friday's agenda was a buffet breakfast at a hotel near my flat...the breakfast had gotten lovely reviews, but I'm sad to report that I was unimpressed. Moving right along, I popped into
Selfridges for some yummy food for my train ride, having heard that British Rail serves rather foul food.

And then I was off! But, incidentally, the first class lounge at Paddington had pretty decent (and free) food. So noted.

Arriving in Cardiff after my 3 hour train ride, I quite successfully and quickly hailed a taxi (yay me) and arrived at the hotel.

I checked in and they'd honoured my fear-of-heights request for a low floor room. Only, when I walked in, it looked out on some public balcony, which I later realised was seating for the restaurant. Now, those of you who know me know that I don't do confrontation. At all. But, I pondered my predicament for a few minutes, reminded myself that this was supposed to be a heavenly, relaxing vacation...and I went back down to reception.

The gentleman I spoke with was very, very nice (and cute ;) ) and he agreed that he wouldn't like it either. Then we had a peculiar exchange where, after a few minutes, we realised that I had booked a junior suite, but had been alloted only a deluxe room. But, I could tell from his mumbling to a colleague, that through a computer glitch, I had paid for a deluxe room. They'd put the wrong rate on the junior suites. But hey, I was on a roll and on paper, I had a reservation for a junior suite, so I got brave and asked that, given that all the junior suites were taken and my new room would still just be a deluxe room, what was I being given as compensation? I even asked if I could have a master suite instead...to which they replied that they'd give me one if there were any available, but there weren't.

This will be even more amusing and along the lines of good karma in a moment, but they took £40 off my cost. So, cute nice guy takes me up to my new room...which was on the 7th and frighteningly top floor, a compromise on my part for what he called his favourite room in the whole hotel. So, up we go...and when he opened the door, good lord. It was on a corner and 2 of the walls of the room were entirely glass, floor to ceiling, all overlooking Cardiff Bay. And, as all the rooms do, I had my own balcony. I even have a few pictures from my one terrifying journey onto said balcony, which I'll get around to posting someday :P But basically, I saved money and got what was probably better than a junior suite anyway. So yay.

So, I unpacked and headed down to the bar for a drink, then I spent the next few hours spaing ;) I vegged in the hot tub for a bit and then had a 2 hour "treatment," which was a scalp and body massage and a facial. She told me not to drink that night, due to the effects of the massage. Whatever lady, I'm on holiday, it's Friday night and I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want. Neiner neiner. (Out loud I politely lied that I'd obey :P). But anyway, the heavenly weekend had begun.

Getting myself presentable again, I headed to the hotel restaurant for the 3-course dinner included in my package. But, they'd somehow forgotten my reservation and it was a few minutes before I could be seated...so, without my even complaining (I was in relaxation heaven at that very moment and really didn't care), they comped me a drink at the bar :D The luck continues.

So, I finally got seated and - after what became very slow service - I went to order and they were out of the one starter I wanted. Bucking up my courage again, I asked to see the manager...and decided to use my forgotten reservation and the slow service as the basis of my (successful) argument to order one of the starters off the a la carte menu instead (which I wanted more anyway :P). And then, they brought me a complimentary mini portion of soup and bread, for all my inconvenience. So it was a 4-course meal. :) So, yay me again...all this sticking up for myself was getting out of control all the sudden ;)

So, Friday came and went, with more pain from food - I always forget that dieting shrinks my stomach and that I can't just suddenly eat mass quantities of food. Oh well, it was to be a theme throughout the weekend. I went through an entire bottle of Gaviscon. Doh.

Saturday...I didn't do much of anything. I got up, worked out for a (short short) while, ate breakfast, vegged in the spa...decided to buy another massage (set for that evening), ate lunch at a (mediocre) cafe outside (it was unexpectedly warm and sunny), wandered the shops around the Bay for a bit, had some ice cream and made late dinner reservations at a restaurant with a great view of the bay. It was either that place or a place that got rave reviews, but had no view. The view won me over. So, back to the hotel for a bit of sitting in my glorious hotel room, soaking up the sun and watching the Bay, until the room actually starting doing greenhouse type heat things and got too hot to be comfortable, then more of the spa and my massage...and I was suddenly wishing I were ordering room service and not going back out. But alas, I got myself presentable again and went to my dinner reservation. And was sorry I chose the view over the food, it was blah. And weird. You go up to a deli-like counter and order your food...and then they bring it to you. But it's not a casual cafe-type place. Weird. Anyway, after my mediocre dinner, I went back to the hotel and opened my curtains - having decided earlier that no one could see in, since the view looked out to nowhere, and I wanted to just wake up when it got light out, maybe even watch the sun come up. And then I flopped onto my big comfy bed to do some more vegging.

This morning, I woke up with the sun (but didn't see it come up) and decided I didn't feel like exercising, so I went back to bed for awhile, had another yummy breakfast and after a bit of spaing, had my last massage :( But then, after getting cleaned up and out the door, I had far more luck than yesterday with food. After my mediocre lunch yesterday, I noticed a cute little French cafe next door, so that was today's destination...with a yummy lunch of escargots and fries with Bearnaise...and a lemon tart. Washed down with a glass of pink champagne, a glass of merlot and a cappuccino. Yum.

After more wandering around the Bay, more ice cream and some tea, I bought some black olive bread and cheese from a farm stand along the Bay. I'd planned to have it for dinner. But it'll be breakfast tomorrow instead. Because, after all that wandering, I was bored and tired and still had 2 hours to kill, so I went back to the bar at the hotel and decided to just wait it out there...and I caved and ordered a Reuben, so now I feel gross and I don't foresee eating the bread and cheese. I have issues.

So, there you go...I'm not sure what tomorrow involves, but definitely more vegging ;) Cardiff was fun, but I didn't see much, I was too relaxed and lazy. No castle, I didn't even go to the city centre. Oh well. Next time perhaps. This wasn't a culture holiday, it was a relaxing one. And though I do love London, it was nice to be among friendly and nice people for a change...the hotel staff, and the other guests I talked to, were all really nice. Now why can't Londoners be like that?