Travel Woes, and 'The Goat'

I booked to see Edward Albee's 'The Goat: Or,Who is Sylvia' because I couldn't resist the chance to see Sophie Okonedo live on stage.


I booked a matinee, as that lets me travel up to London for the day without having to incur the cost of a hotel.

Things did not work out entirely to plan.

I arrived in Bath to catch my train to London, and discovered that it had been cancelled, apparently due to a fire on a train somewhere near Swindon. This necessitated  so careful calculations which led e to the conclusion that *if* the next train was on time, and assuming no delays on the tube, I ought to just be able to make it to the theatre on time, so I decided to wait and catch the next train. (I hate being late, so tend always to be early, which does at least mean that missing a train and being delayed for a time need not be a complete disaster)

It was, inevitably, a very crowded train, and very hot, but I did eventually get to London, and to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. 

The play is... odd. Successful, award-winning architect Martin (Damian Lewis) has been happily married to his wife, Stevie (Sophie Okonedo) for 22 years, has a loving (and gay) son, Billy (Archie Madekwe) and is due to be interviewed by his oldest friend, Ross (Jason Hughes), about his 50th Birthday, his recent award, and the new, flattering commission he has received to design a new billion dollar city.  

Ross challenges Martin about his absent-mindedness and lack of engagement with the interview, and he confesses that his distraction is due to his having fallen in love and started an affair ... with a goat.

The play then follows the reactions to Martin's confession - Ross's disgust, Stevie's disbelief, then anger and despair (and a lot of smashing things) 

It's blackly comic in places - even while fighting over the disintegration of their marriage, Stevie and Martin can be sidetracked by semantics and word-play. And pretty dark, by the end.

Interesting, though. I'm glad I saw it.  And Sophie Okonedo is awesome.

It is on at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, until 24th June, so you don't have a lot of time if you want to go!.

It's just as well the play was worth seeing, as, as well as the fun delays on my journey in, I got delayed again coming home. My train got stuck on account of a train near Swindon having a small fire, which resulted in some of the passengers being evacuated onto the trackside, which (understandably)  means they have to stop all the trains.

We ended up sitting at Didcot for an hour, which meant I also missed the last but back to the Park and Ride. Somewhat to my surprise, when I asked, the rail company did give me a voucher for a taxi to the car park,which was a relief, as I *really* didn't fancy walking 3 miles uphill, at the end of a long, very hot day!

Fortunately, none of the people on the train were hurt, they just got delayed even more than we did, I think

Final Day in Turkey

We were due to fly home very early on Saturday - our flight was 1.40 a.m. so we had a full day to clean the flat, pack, buy gifts and such.

That being the case, we bought baklava and Turkish delight, and then, after stripping all the bed, caught a dolmus to Oludeniz where we swam, and read, and lounged, before heading back to the flat and, after some more cleaning, we went to the hamman for one final relaxing sauna, scrub and general clean.

Unfortunately, after having got ourselves all beautifully relaxed, we discovered that the flight was running late. In the absence of any official word from the airline (we saw it on Gatwick's website) we decided that we'd better go to the airport as originally planned...

It turned out that the gatwick website was correct, and the flight was then delayed further - we eventually took off at 6.15, very considerably later than we we due to have landed...

We quickly exhausted the pleasures of Dalaman airport, and spent most of the night on benches, before watching the sun rise over the mountains before we finally got to take off.

But other than that final blip, the holiday was great, and even returning was mitigated by K's fiance, C, who met us at the atation, and took us home and cooked us a wonderful breakfast, before E and I left to go home.

What I Did on My Holidays: Part I

It did not begin well. Due to the cost of airport parking, and the not wanting to have to drive around (especially around Heathrow) when it was cold, and dark, and I was tired, I decided to start my journey by train. I was organised. I checked the time table and the connections. I re-checked, an hour before setting off. I checked the display boards when I got to the station. All were unanimous. The first train would come at 19.14, which would give me 8 minutes to change trains in Bath, en route for London. And it would have worked, I’m sure, if the train company had played there part by sending the train. So, with that, and with the next train being delayed, I didn’t get to Heathrow until Midnight, instead of arriving as planned at about 9.45. It’s just as well that I had planned to sleep at Heathrow (In a funky little Pod hotel), as I would have been very much more stressed had my flight been in the evening not the following morning.

The ‘Yotel’ Pod was rather sweet and the bed was very comfy. I slept, and arose refreshed for the first of many breakfasts.

My flight was on time, less than half full and therefore peaceful and comfortable. Changing planes in Istanbul slightly less so – the international and domestic terminals are quite a long walk from one another, and the domestic terminal was packed, as it was the Friday before the start of the Eid El Ulna festival on Monday (‘Feast of the Sacrifice’, which is festival, when everyone goes home to be with family, so my travelling was pretty much the equivalent of getting a flight on Christmas Eve…so the flight to Dalaman was absolutely packed. I felt quite fortunate in having actually got the flight to Dalaman, however, as due to various delays, cancellations and gate changes for a lot of flights, a very poor quality announcement system (poor sound quality; not even the Turkish passengers could make out what was being said) and an apparently arbitrary approach to buses I was half expecting to find myself on a flight to Antayla, or any one of a number of destinations…

It was therefore particularly nice to be met at the airport by my sister, Kat, and driven home (by one of her neighbours, who has a car) to a hot meal, drinks, and bed.

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