Tag: Premier Inn

Schindler’s Lift

Schindler’s Lift

Following a boozy afternoon on the tiles, I had no memory of making it back to our hotel in East London. This is despite staggering from Soho to Piccadilly Circus to get the Tube, changing at Oxford Circus, taking the Central Line to Stratford, finding the hotel and checking in. I was thankful to wake up in the right room in the right hotel with the right person. Liam couldn’t remember anything either.

I rolled out of bed and peered through the window. The first thing I noticed was how high up we were. It was quite a view, with the London 2012 Olympic Stadium – now home to West Ham Football Club – in the foreground and the city skyline beyond. There were cranes everywhere – saluting the ever-evolving cityscape. The sky was winter bright and the sun hurt my eyes; I drew the curtains and clambered back under the duvet.

After a couple of hours’ dozing and dossing, it was time to drag our weary carcasses back home to little old Norwich to nest and rest. Easier said than done. The Schindler’s lifts were on a go slow and it took ages to get down to the first floor reception to check out. Rather than wait for another sulky lift, we decided to take the stairs to street level. What we didn’t know was that the hotel was perched on top of a high-rise car park and the stairwell just went down, down and down. Our heads thumped in sync with every step into the abyss. For some inexplicable reason, the treads were numbered with felt-tip pen.

And there were the directions just in case we lost our way. Clearly,  the cleaners didn’t make it down very often. And who could blame them?

We had an hour or so to kill before our train, so we settled on the best hangover cure – a full English in a fancy restaurant. Yes, that’s a dead tree behind Liam. Very fancy.

Lofty Pretentions

After viewings that ranged from the dreary to the dreadful, we found our Norwich city centre loft in appropriately named Queen’s Street. It’s a newly converted top-floor, top drawer flat with skylights, down lights and grey appliances with real feel-appeal. Yes, we are that shallow. The apartment is above a trendy bar with a student clientele. We’d rather hoped it would be a seedy clip joint to cement the sanitised neo-Bohemian garret theme we were looking for. Back at the letting agents, we paid our fee for our credit assessment. Without being prompted, the nice young man processed our application as a married couple which gave us a bit of a discount.

On the last evening of our exploratory week, we celebrated our continued good fortune at the Premier Inn restaurant where the fare was surprisingly good and wine surprisingly fine. As we raised our glasses, we watched the smart suits with smart phones file in two by two. It sent a visible shudder down Liam’s spine as he was rudely reminded of his old laboured life. “Never again,” he muttered. Our young waiter was a busy walker who darted about dispensing friendly but unobtrusive service to his charges. Now we’ve left Turkish airspace, my gaydar is fully-functional and we exchanged sly we-both-know-what-we-are glances. At the end of his shift, he joined us for a large glass of red and a little casual conversation. He’d recently moved from Devon to Norwich to be with his new partner and gave us the low down on the low life of the Norwich gay scene. Apparently, times were tough when he first got off the bus. It took him three months to find a job. He said:

“I was the assistant manager of a motorway service station. It had a Burger King and a Costa Coffee. I was trained in both. They said I was over-qualified.”

Sleepy Norwich

Blazing June in Blighty is a damp squib. As Bodrum hit the low forties, we were welcomed home by angry black skies and our first walkabout around Norwich was blasted by blustery showers. We didn’t let it dampen our spirits. Norwich’s cobbled medieval quarter was classy, if somewhat ghostly. Perhaps the inclement weather conspired to keep the crowds at bay. Norwich people are a fruity cocktail – fake Burberry chavs, silver-studded hippies, scruffy students, chalky professors, smart-tailored henrys, well-appointed pensioners and middle England mothers in Barbour jackets and sensible shoes. We meandered casually through the smart shops without being dragged in by the scuff of the neck and browsed the shelves without being stalked by the retail police. English politeness reigned supreme; we overdosed on thank you, excuse me and after you.

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We ended a hassle-free day by feasting on Thai, toasting to our safe arrival and the adventures to come. We observed city street life from the warmth of the elegant linen-tabled restaurant. Norwich at night was strangely sleepy. Perhaps the deep recession has imposed a financial curfew on the worried masses. Squiffy and sated, we wandered back to our lodgings at a Premier Inn – the best in show of the low cost boarding-houses – to splash about in the reviving waters of a deep bath and canoodle in the comfy bed. We still need to find a roof over our heads. That’s for another day.