“Ah, 3:15pm. I’ve got a couple of hours before Costa closes, just time to go in and get a coffee and read for a bit. Excellent. Glad I don’t have to get my laptop out in there for once, given I’m going in to relax and not to attempt to do degree work. It’s nice to have escaped Oxford for longer than usual. Ooh, that reminds me, better start thinking about my blog; it’ll have to go up soon, given that I put it up on Sundays and we’re already on… Sunday. Bugger. Right, better get my laptop out and write that then. Sorry, Robert Webb, you’ll have to wait.
Date of trip: Saturday 25th August 2018
Journey time: approx. 1 hr (to Windsor & Eton Central; change at Slough)
Fare: £11.55 (Off-Peak, with 16–25 Railcard)
“That’s the easy bit done. I should probably close the National Rail website, but I’ve got twenty-five tabs open already, one more won’t make a difference. Now I have to think of something to say. Ummmm… I mean, this is instantly harder because we didn’t actually do anything touristy in Windsor, did we? I remember remarking on how touristy the place was, because it felt like Cornmarket Street but worse. Hang on, better not tell them that, it’ll put them off going. Maybe tell them about how we spent our first ten minutes there looking for a home for a caterpillar that had hitched a lift with us on the shuttle train? Nah, that makes us look a bit weird. Hmm, better just tell them about the afternoon tea, then.
“What was the name of that café? I’ll Google it… Jungs, that’s it. Oh, turns out that’s a small chain, I thought that was the only one. The others are in Buckinghamshire, typical; could have done with one of those cakes up here in the north. Damn, they were good cakes. Although, nice as that was, I guess I should warn my readers (it still feels weird to use that phrase) to be specific when they order: I guess I was hungry enough for an afternoon tea, but we actually only ordered a cream tea, so we ended up with much more food than we were expecting. Would love that now… Guess I’ll have to make do with Bettys—yeah, ’cos I have the money for that, lol.
“(When did my internal monologue start using words like ‘lol’?)
“I don’t remember what else we did… Oh, yeah, we also went into that department store, didn’t we? Had a stupid name, but I can’t just write that, I’m supposed to make this thing look vaguely professional—‘Daniel’, that was it. Had a Royal Warrant to the Queen as a gift shop, for some reason. Who does the Queen buy gifts for? Surely she just buys presents, as Dave Gorman put it? (That’s annoying, the explanation of that reference starts 31 minutes and 40 seconds in; better mention that somewhere. And thank the person who tweeted that time reference so I didn’t have to trawl through the episodes on Costa’s WiFi.) To be fair to Daniel, though, the train set suspended from the ceiling was cool. Didn’t it say it had Berkshire’s largest toy department, or something?
“That was about it for Windsor, wasn’t it? I think we just went to Eton after that. Well, we did walk through that park where there was a chap under the bandstand in a tux singing… something? I forget; damn, that would have added some colour to the post. And then we walked to the bridge across the Thames. Actually, no, we walked the wrong way first, didn’t we? I wonder if my friend worked out that I did that on purpose so I could check out how expensive the motorboats were before deciding whether or not to suggest whether to go in one? Better not mention that, given that we didn’t go in one because it was too expensive, and if he reads this my minor subterfuge will be exposed.
“Alright, I’ll skip to the Eton bit. I was kind of surprised that there was an actual town there—with a Costa an’ all—and not just the school. Although the school kind of dominated after a while. And there was stuff owned by the school that I didn’t realise was owned by the school. Like that church that it turned out the school owned, with their sanatorium on the old church floor and the new church upstairs. To be fair to them, the effect on the east window of the Church was pretty damn cool. Wasn’t that how the volunteer at the gate lured us in to visit? She saw my camera and said I’d get a great picture.
“And then there was the school. Hmm, did any of my readers go to a public school? I guess they might have, so I should probably lay off on how sickeningly privileged the whole thing was. They seemed to have more playing fields than my bloody university… And that weird physical education equipment that seemed to consist of vaguely dangerous-looking bridges over a stony brook. What was that? It said the public weren’t allowed to use it, but I’m not sure why they’d want to risk serious injury anyway…
“But yeah, what kind of school has its own observatory?! And golf club?! And artwork by Antony Gormley?! And, blimey, that gift shop?! Not that that was directly the school’s fault, I guess, but who the hell is buying a chart showing how the house colours have evolved?! This is like Oxford on steroids. Okay, calm down, Alex, put your mental interrobangs away.
“Hmm, how am I going to write about this place without just getting angry? I guess keep it to the point, factual, y’know? Oooh, I should mention that walk I found online. I’m glad I noticed that sign mentioning that there was an Eton Walkway, that self-guided walk around the town, and I’m glad whoever runs it put the route online. Actually, linking to that is a great idea, because then I don’t have to write about everything that was in that, because people can just look at the leaflet instead. Excellent.
“Is that it? I guess I should come up with some sort of concluding remark. These always sound pretty glib… Something about how it’s a non-obvious place to visit from Oxford, somehow, even though it’s almost as easy to get to as London? And how it’s fun to visit even if you don’t want to spend money on the castle? Yeah, that’ll do.
“Oh, damn, I forgot to mention the ridiculousness of the Lego Harry and Meghan in the station shopping centre. Oh well, they can see it in the photos.”
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