To Cheltenham & Gloucester and Back Again

The story of my St. Patrick's Day Weekend

I hope everyone celebrated Paddy's Day in style.

I went to cheltenham on Friday with my housemates to soak in the atmosphere of the post gold cup celebrations. It was a great evening, i liked Cheltenham and there were enough random people in for the races to keep a people watcher like me amused for days. It was particularly amusing to watch Rachel's boyfriend Steve and his friend Carlos who had been drinking steadily throughout the whole day, culminating in Steve being slumped over a bar, eyes glazed over but still drinking on automatic. They were still going when we decided we had enough and went back to Rachel's. When they staggered back later Steve fell on the sofa bed where Laura and Shiv were attempting to sleep and he proceeded to breathe on Shiv asking her if his breath smelt. poor shiv couldn't escape because he was pinning down the sleeping bag in which she was zipped up in. When i went into the kitchen the next morning there was a naked man sleeping on the kitchen floor with a sheep skin rug as his only covering. Strange people in cheltenham.

The next day being St Patrick's Day and the last day of the 6 nations rugby, we took ourselves to o'neils to join in the celebrations. 3 rugby matches, a silly guiness hat, and several magners later and Laura and I parted company with everyone else and went to catch the 8.02 train to Reading. When we got to Cheltenham Spa train station we discovered that it was not a direct train and that we would have to change at Bristol Parkway. So we get on the train and we wait for the conductor to come along so we can buy our tickets. We knew it was a bad sign when we stated our destination and he said "Where??"

After some very confusing dialogue he eventually told us that if we changed at Bristol parkway we would have to pay 40 pounds but if we went to swindon it would only be 19 pounds. being students we decided the cheaper option was the right one, even though that meant getting off at Gloucester and getting another train back the way we had just come. Unfortunately we then discovered the train was coming for another hour and a half. So we wandered into Gloucester and two magners later and we were finally on a train heading in the right direction. In the end it turned out the ticket was only 10 pounds cheaper and we spent that on drinks in Gloucester.

Of course that was not the end of my St patricks weekend. Yesterday London Irish were playing London Wasps at Madejski stadium. Irish won 16-13 and the celebrations flowed on into the town. Go Irish!