So it was with our stay. The earlier part of our stay was spent relaxing, especially around the pool, and it didn’t take long for some of the regulars to become known. We never knew the names of any of them – aside from the occasional poorly behaved child whose name was shouted in exasperation – so it became normal to use epithets for these selection of characters.

The Kojak Brothers were perhaps the most distinctive poolside faces, comprising Kojak himself with his penchant for iridescent shorts and glamorous wife, and his brother, similarly bald with a less glamorous wife in-tow.

Then there was the French lady who spent much time drifting around the edge of the pool, always with one arm held aloft holding her book of choice. We didn’t develop an epithet more punchy than the Native American sounding ‘Frenchwoman-who-reads-book-in-pool.’ She never seemed to actually swim, however, preferring to wade around with her book in the air and moan about the British teenagers.

The Phoenicia wasn’t a hotel for youngsters; 5-stars put it well beyond the financial means of backpackers; however a few A-level students were clearly on what would likely be one of their last family holidays with their parents. There was a pair of boys ‘Blondie’ and ‘Brownie’ and what we decided was their love interest; a girl holidaying separately with her own family. Clearly in a hotel largely bereft of teenagers they quickly got together to kill time strumming a guitar by the pool. Blondie turned out to be a versatile musician: one afternoon he plinked away on the hotel’s grand piano rather entertainingly.

Each day, be at breakfast, the pool, in the lounge or cocktail bar, we’d as likely as not encounter some of these characters. However in the way of hotels any of these faces may vanish at any time; new unfamiliar ones appearing in their place. By the end of our stay we saw few of the regulars, although we’d also focused more on sightseeing at the expense of time at the pool. It was odd, that we felt this tinge of sadness at the absence of what were to all intents of purposes complete strangers. It’s a curiosity of hotel life and perhaps the mundanity of hotel life that attributes this extra value. Perhaps we feel that the sharing of experience – albeit that of a hotel interior and its grounds – represents something that links us.

The wedding went literally without a hitch. The Grim’s Dyke Hotel were magnificent in their organisation and really let us get on and enjoy our day without any concern for logistics. Everyone was extremely complimentary about the food and arrangements; even an aunt of mine who arranges huge events for a living and can find fault from 500 paces said it was perfectly organised. Praise indeed.

Harrow’s registrars were lovely and ensured the ceremony struck the right balance for our wedding, of it being an important statement of commitment, while also being a day for joy and fun. Again, the registrar led their part of the day, making it stress and hassle free, with us just following the instructions, which by that point was perhaps all we could manage anyway! An undoubted highlight was the always slightly tense question by the registrar asking if anyone knew of any reason why we shouldn’t be married. At this Tara’s father shot a look over his shoulder and the guests crumpled in laughter. Superb comic timing.

The speeches delivered after the wedding breakfast all went down a treat. In our case, we delivered a joint bride and groom speech. This helped give the occasion a flavour that was distinct to us, rather than just following the format of every other wedding, and seemed to go down well with guests.

For the reception we also decided to dispense with the standard crap wedding disco DJ and go for a live band. It took a good deal of research to track down a band that offered the right mix of music that would appeal to all generations present while keeping within our budget, but the Untouchables did that brilliantly, and were received to universal acclaim by everyone there. Covering everything from Elvis to the Goo Goo Dolls (our choice for first dance) is no mean feat but the vocals and music were bang on the money with every track.

Another bonus of having a live band is that it makes for great photos. Another tip of the hat goes to our wedding photographer Neil Palmer whose coverage of the day greeted us as we returned from honeymoon and which looks superb. We’re quite sure that many of the shots will be adorning the mantlepieces and walls of family and friends very shortly. He did a sterling job considering the Harrovian monsoon rains which appeared just as the outdoor group shots were wrapping up.

All in all the wedding was everything that we could have hoped for. Everyone played their part allowing us and our guests to enjoy the day to its fullest and we hope that it was personalised enough for it to hold some great memories for all those who helped us celebrate the day.

We started with a couple of coffees at Le Pain Quotidien (annoyingly misspelled on FourSquare) on Marylebone High Street, which is definitely the easiest fun place to get to from Rickmansworth (don’t start, Watford fans). Caught up with chief collaborator Alys just by the big Methodist church – she was definitely looking more glam than I was – and met Sarah and Lucy outside LPQ. Didn’t have to wait long for a table and spent about an hour sipping from those lovely handle-less bowls they give you and very briefly looking at the paper. Virtuously rejected breakfast, although the food they do there is just lovely, so as to leave room for cheese at our next stop.

At 12.30, we mooched down the road to La Fromagerie on Moxon Street. It was already very busy, so we had time to look at the seriously #middleclass ingredients on show in the vestibule (chickpea flour, anyone?). It’s a beautiful cafe/deli with wooden benches or bar stools and a skylight over the eating area. We ordered two large plates of cheese (Spanish/Portuguese and a mixture of selected cheeses) for £13.50 each to share and two lots of bread. The highlight for me was a gorgeously fudgy blue cheese from Ireland from the selection board that looked like it ought to have grown on the inside of an abandoned coffee mug. Annoyingly, I can’t find the name of it on their website – may have been available but briefly. We had the house white to accompany. I have no idea about wine, but I’m told it was a good choice.

Our next official stop wasn’t until 4, so we went on a semi-unplanned hike through Hyde Park. There’s been so little rain that it looked a bit like an apocalyptic wasteland at the Marble Arch end. A few people sat in scattered deck chairs and one drunk lay in a state of seeming rigor mortis on the grass. We carried on walking until we finally came to a vacant bench and watched the hire bikes go by. Alys and I had seen a docking rank finished and installed by the National Gallery on Tuesday and the scheme launched on Friday. Seventeen of the things passed by in half an hour as we sat there in wonderment (this may have had something to do with there being ranks at either end of Hyde Park and a flat surface in between). Don’t think a single rider was wearing a helmet – they need to fix that somehow. Amused to see them being referred to as ‘Bojo bikes’ on Twitter recently.

We walked most of the way to the Strand to the Waldorf Hilton (3.4 miles, let me tell you) for tea. Well worth a visit. £8.50 for a cream tea, which Sarah, Alys and I had. Lucy had a little strawberry tart instead. We had the old cream then jam or jam then cream debate. Personally, I definitely do cream, then jam. I think it’s because cream will go flat, but jam won’t, so it has to go on the top. It’s a visual thing. We also enjoyed the pianist just outside the door (known as Plinky-Plinky Man 1).

Had a wander back up to Soho via Covent Garden after tea, where we saw the best use of a Bojo bike so far. The first half hour is free, so an anonymous gentleman had borrowed one and was doing wheelies up and down the road. Well, why not?

Having popped into the Chandos for a cherry beer, we met up with my mother, her friend and two more friends for dinner at Kettner’s in Soho, which is supposed to be where Oscar Wilde was arrested. There are plenty of upstairs private dining rooms (which we didn’t eat in, but saw a great deal of as we wandered about trying to find the loos).

This is my starter – scallops with risotto nero (Nero is Etruscan for black, as you know if you’ve read ‘I, Claudius’. ‘Caffe Nero’ is much cleverer if you know that, too). Lovely scallops. Risotto…well, risotto-like. There was a definite emphasis on both savoury and sweet tarts. The salmon and spinach one I had for my main course was very nice. It came with a little bit of potato salad and some salad leaves. What was noticeable, however, was that my mother had the same as her starter and they didn’t differ particularly in terms of size. Clearly they were trying to help me get into my dress. Nonetheless, the atmosphere of the restaurant was very pleasant (Plinky-Plinky Man 2) and the service generally good, other than a small misunderstanding over a ‘blue’ steak. Prices weren’t bad, either. Starters ranged from about a fiver to £7.50 and mains from £11 to £19. Not bad for central London.

Naturally, after that we did a wild crawl of all of Soho’s cocktail bars and stayed out clubbing until dawn. Just joking. We went home.

1. No one reminds you to tell the head’s secretary that you’re changing your name. I think it was when the timetables first started coming out that I twigged that the coding was wrong.
2. Not only that, but I’ve had to ask for a special set of initials – being ‘TA’ in a school would be extremely confusing, as it usually stands for ‘teaching assistant’.
3. You have to tell the children well in advance that you’re changing your name so that they have time to get used to the idea (as with any other piece of information, such as “this is your fifteen minute warning to pick up your pen…”). Then they can enjoy practising it and trying to use it. This confuses the less bright ones, who then think you’ve got married over the weekend and proceed to try to hug you. In fairness, it does affect them slightly – their form name changes by one letter. They don’t seem to mind. We minded very much when our form tutor got married at school, because we desperately wanted to remain ‘10OC’ – read it quickly and you’ll see why. I’ve said to them that I don’t really mind if they can’t manage the new name for a bit. Change is tough for 14 year olds.
4. Everybody seems to take it personally if you don’t tell them specifically that you’re getting married. The large diamond/Facebook doesn’t do the trick, apparently. Should I have worn a big sign all year saying “I’m getting married on…”? This applies to the kids who aren’t in my tutor group as well, so when their timetables came out they came flooding in to ask who this mysterious “Mrs X” was.
5. I can’t write my new surname without consciously thinking about the letters. Too many tall consonants. Must practise.
6. Also, I keep forgetting I have new initials when coding up all the stationery.
7. Irritatingly, the data system has decided that I no longer have an initial – I have become the entity “Mrs X”.

I’m sure everyone who changes their name when they get married has similar issues (I haven’t even started looking at important things, like bank accounts and passports). Maybe I should just have persuaded Dan to change his name instead…

Would you believe that people don’t want to buy us towels and a garlic press? I was under the impression that wedding lists were meant to be domestic and boring. Tell you what, though, we’re going to have a hell of a chuck-out after the wedding. Bye bye all the crappy Argos and Tesco cutlery and kitchen stuff we bought when we first moved in together.

Just the peripheral things left to do now and I realise I’m supposed to be some kind of monumentally stressed-out Bridezilla by this point in the process, but I’m failing heartily. We’ve paid the hotel (don’t get me started on  how much we’re paying for one day of our lives), met the registrar and just about decided on the music. Still loads of things to pay for, although our parents’ generous contributions have helped with that (particularly paying for the Dress). Found out yesterday that the alterations to the Dress (inevitable, you’d have thought) are going to be an extra £125 – and the seamstress doesn’t take cards. Hmm… having said I’m not stressed out, it’s sounding like I am. I’m not. Really. I’m just appalled at how much everything costs. I’m sure we paid less (ignore the deposit for the purposes of this sentence) to buy our flat.

So, the shoes crisis. The issue was that I proposed wearing DMs as an alternative to totally un-me bridal shoes, which will also hurt. I don’t usually wear heels. I certainly don’t wear 3″ heels. Mother had a small fit and we’ve had to come up with a compromise to keep everyone happy. Thus, I shall be wearing proper shoes (from Shu Shu in Pinner) for the ceremony and photos (keeping their use down to about an hour and a half) and metallic pink DMs for the rest of the day! I’m going to keep an eye out for thick socks with hearts on them to go with the boots.

The meeting with the registrar did make things seem a bit more real, particularly as it was held in the room where they do civil ceremonies at Harrow civic centre, so we sat in the chairs they use and Jan, the registrar, mimed out the beginning of the ceremony. Choosing readings has been difficult – once again it’s a question of finding something that’s not cliched and sappy.

So, four weeks to go until it’s all over and we can jet off to Malta and some peace and quiet!

A substantial upgrade

Some context is necessary, however, to explain just why I’m finding this new handset to be just as revolutionary as it is. I’ve made the upgrade to the iPhone 4 from the iPhone 3G. The 3G was, and is, a fine phone, and has served me well. However for a number of weeks it’s been running iOS4, which as many users have realised does the iPhone 3G no favours at all. It seems that iOS4 is trying to fit too many features across too great a range of handsets and it’s simply too demanding of the iPhone 3G’s hardware. I found that simple tasks such as texting became extremely slow and would often crash the app. Running apps while listening to a podcast – a task causing no problems at all under OS 3.1.3 – suddenly led to stuttering, apps crashing, and on occasion the iPhone crashing entirely. I stuck with iOS4 as I wanted to easily set-up the iPhone 4 using the existing restore, however the weeks of waiting did severely test me.

The delivery of my iPhone 4 yesterday finally saw end to this torment. Setting it up was simplicity itself, using the last restore point from the iPhone 3G and O2’s astoundingly straight-forward SIM swapping website. The hardest part of it all was getting the micro-SIM snapped out of the card it came in.

Using the restore point meant that the iPhone 4 was immediately familiar, with all the apps in their usual places, yet the speed increase was instantly noticeable. The iPhone 3G has always struggled with Twittelator Pro; my Twitter client of choice. As a result I’d always switched between it and the quicker Twitter for iPhone (formerly Tweetie) app. Now, Twittelator offers all the speed you’d want. It’s universally quick and responsive, and a joy to use, overcoming all of my bugbears with it on the 3G.

I quickly realised that the performance limitations of the 3G had actually greatly influenced the way I’d been using the phone and apps on it. iOS4 had caused such instability and performance issues that I’d avoided using certain apps and generally taken a cautious approach to using the phone’s functions as a whole. Essentially I’d not been using the phone to its full potential; shackles now broken with iPhone 4.

At last: a decent camera

The iPhone 4 is not only fast, it also includes the enhancements brought by the subsequent iPhone 3GS and a great deal more besides. It brings the compass, and with it the augmented reality apps that use it, plus the new, but thus far little used gyroscope and proximity sensor. Most eagerly anticipated by me, the iPhone’s camera is finally brought up to spec with that of other phones; a respectable 5 megapixels with flash, HD video recording and a secondary camera. The potential of this improved hardware excites me, as I’ve been wanting to use the iPhone as an all-in-one mobile device. For it to succeed in this role it needs to be able to capture the moment; whatever that may be. The 3G’s camera simply wasn’t up to the task. Now, at first glance at least, photos are looking good and video is great quality. It means I shouldn’t need a separate camera for general usage photos and I’ll be able to share clear content on social media sites. All in all it’s an excellent and perhaps a rather overdue development.

For the commute

I put my iPhone to its greatest use on my weekday commute into central London. This takes around an hour each way – longer if I walk for part of the way – and as with many journeys to the capital often involves cramped and crowded conditions. The iPhone has long been essential for entertainment, distraction and maintaining sanity on the commute.

Until now the iPhone’s multi-tasking abilities have only extended as far as running an app with the iPod playing in the background. Now, the iPhone 4 offers much more complete multi-tasking capabilities. Most attractive are those of streaming audio services while working on apps in the foreground. Multiple apps can also now be run, switching between them without needing to close them, pausing those not in use in the background. All in the all, multi-tasking should represent a real progression for productivity and flexibility.

The other key element is the battery life; a perennial issue with smart phones. On the iPhone 3G the battery can struggle to last the day with reasonable usage, to the point where I always now take the charger to work to ensure there’s charge enough to last the commute home. The iPhone 4 promises 40% longer battery life. Although I’ve yet to test the phone during a full working day, it should comfortably last the day.

However, greater battery capacity does in turn encourage yet more use. As slow and fragile performance on the iPhone 3G under iOS 4 lead to me limiting my use, so has a need to conserve battery. Suddenly there’s the prospect of being able to fully embrace features and functions on the iPhone. Ironically, as the potential for productivity reaches its peak, the mobile networks take away the promise of their unlimited data usage.

Still, my average monthly usage on the iPhone 3G was just 160MB. I’d have to step up my usage a good deal to exceed the new 500Mb usage limit now imposed by O2, and even more so the 1GB limit offered by other networks.

The Fat Aubergine makes much of its shakes and smoothies. There’s a bewildering variety, although Brown Sugar already offers a strong selection. As with Brown Sugar there are several menus around which makes it trickier to make a choice than perhaps it should. We both intended to have dairy free options and went for fruit smoothies and shakes, however missing the small print from each menu ended up with yoghurt and a milk shake respectively! They were tasty enough, but you don’t necessarily want to have to spend a good deal of time reading to make a simple choice.

We were more disappointed by the food, which is already prepared and not made to order as in Cinnamon Square or Brown Sugar. This meant that some of the choices were already sold out, and we felt there were relatively few fresh options available; something the competition does well.

On the whole, although it’s nice to see new businesses on the High Street, we didn’t feel Fat Aubergine offered anything that wasn’t already available from other cafés. It’s not the easiest of markets either, as Cinnamon Square uses its award winning homemade breads and is better than ever in its recently expanded form, while Brown Sugar’s deli format offers a superior selection of fresh food. For the moment at least we’re likely to stay with our current regular favourites for weekend lunches.

Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire were the destinations of a series of day-trips during half-term.

Pitstone, Ivinghoe and Tring

Back in February we visited the pleasant town of Berkhamsted. On Bank Holiday morning we pushed a little further north to the area around Tring, as two museums were open. The Pitstone Farm Museum (situated in the village of the same name) and the Ford End Watermill in Ivinghoe are unusual in only being open on a handful of days a year. The reason being is that both are volunteer-run and require a good number of volunteers in place to operate.

Tractor rides at Pitstone Farm Museum

The Pitstone Farm Museum is a real medley of attractions. At its heart is a preserved farm, however farm buildings have been turned into historic shops including a fascinating Smithy. There are also tractor rides, preserved vehicles, model railway and canal, crafts and stalls, and a brilliantly reconstruction of a Lancaster Bomber cockpit, to name but a few. There’s also a pleasant cafe selling home-made food at down to Earth prices.

Neighbouring Pistone is the attractive village of Ivinghoe, probably best known for the nearby Ivinghoe Beacon, one of the highest points in the Chiltern Hills. Also open for the Bank Holiday was the Water End Mill. This watermill is hundreds of years old and sells itself as being one of the only functioning watermills still to use its original machinery. There are friendly volunteers on hand to answer questions and activities for children to play with. The highlight undoubtedly was seeing the mill in full action, rattling away and actually grinding to make flour, which is for sale.

Miller collecting flour as it's made at Ford End Watermill

Back towards Pitstone we stopped for the short walk to Pitstone Windmill. Unusually this wasn’t open on the Bank Holiday, however there are fine views to be had from the windmill. In the past there used to be a cement works nearby, however today the scene has returned to its rural origins.

Pitstone Windmill

We wrapped the day by hopping over the border from Buckinghamshire back into Hertfordshire, with a stop in Tring itself. The town has a modest, pleasant high street, although as with many of the towns in the area there’s not much open on a Bank Holiday. There is branch of Costa on hand, however.

Tring high street

To view our photos from this trip, visit our Flickr channel.

Whipsnade Zoo

Just over the border into Bedfordshire and not many miles from our last day trip is Whipsnade Zoo. One of better known attractions of the area, Whipsnade is now run by ZSL that also operates London Zoo. It’s not cheap day out, costing £19.50 for adults, plus £4 for parking. This is however a family ticket for those with children. Whipsnade should be around a half-hour drive from Ricky, although as we found this is subject to the whims of the M1.

Whipsnade steam train passes camels, deer and yak

Covering a large site, there’s plenty to take up a day. We spent 5 hours at Whipsnade and still didn’t see it all. This, in some part, was due to the sign-posting, which we felt to be lacking and unclear at times. It was good to see animals with a good amount of space to roam on the whole. Some animals, such as wallabies and the odd “it’s not a rabbit, it’s not a deer, what is it?” mara and are allowed to wander around the site. Anyone disappointed at finding no elephants at London Zoo can now see them at the roomier Whipsnade, where the smaller elephant seemed to be content squirting water around. Other highlights included the rhinos, meerkats (which we dutifully compared), camels, giraffes and cheetahs. For children especially there’s a petting zoo and a steam train ride.

See a selection of the animals we saw at Whipsnade on our Flickr channel.

Thame

Having browsed a number of local towns on Flickr we decided we liked the look of Thame, situated in nearest Oxfordshire, just over the border from Buckinghamshire. Thame is a market town with a splendid historic centre and a good clutch of both independent and chain high street shops. A branch of Costa has opened in recent weeks, which is generally a sign of good times for a town, while we’re big fans of the brilliant independent book shop ‘The Book House’ and the extensive family butchers opposite. There’s also a branch of the glorious Steamer Trading Cook Shop, however after the huge spending spree this resulted in on visiting the Marlow branch, we sensibly gave it a wide berth on this occasion.

Thame town hall and high street

We picked up a number of local walk leaflets from the town hall to ensure we saw the best of what Thame has to offer. This included a nature reserve a few minutes walk from the town centre and to the north of the town the River Thame which eventually runs into the similarly named River Thames. There’s also a fabulously traditional looking cricket ground where spectators seem to gather to picnic around the boundary.

Thame is a 40 minute drive from Rickmansworth along the M40. See more images of our Thame visit on our Flickr channel.

Rickmansworth station and the line it is built on are no exception. It seems unlikely that the tight curves of the line and the short platform wedged between two bridges would have been considered if the station and line were built today. However this the legacy with which we have to live.

The whole line to Aylesbury is itself something of a peculiarity of history. Built by the Metropolitan Railway deep into rural Buckinghamshire, the quite separate Grand Central Railway arranged the share the line for its trains to travel into London. Although both companies are long gone, the relative successors of both, TfL’s Metropolitan Line and Chiltern Railways, continue to play somewhat similar roles.

We need to understand the history of the line, not just to appreciate the limits imposed on the service today but also to show that the train service Rickmansworth receives has not always been as it is today.

How Rickmansworth used to be served

Old timetables aren’t easy to come by, but those available online indicate that in the past some elements of Ricky’s train service were better than it is today:

• 1938: Rickmansworth has a full-peak time service from Marylebone.
  (Source: Metroland website, 1938 timetable)
• 1947: Trains run to Watford Junction taking just 10 minutes.
  (Source: Timetable World, LMS timetable 1947)
• 1960: 3 services from Ricky to Marylebone between 8-9am. Today there’s just one.
  (Source: Metroland website, 1960 timetable.)
• 1967: Only from the schedule in this year does the current situation of Marylebone peak services seem to come into effect.
  (Source: Metroland website, 1967 schedule)
• 1977: 6 Met Line trains between 7-8am that takes 30 minutes to Baker Street. Today there are just 4 and they take 34 minutes.
  (Source: Metroland website, 1977 schedule)

There are fewer Marylebone trains, fewer Metropolitan Line trains and longer journey times today compared to past timetables. And of course we’ve lost the link to Watford Junction.

The campaign

There’s historical precedent for a better service than we receive today. As rail usage continues to rise we should be demanding more trains, more capacity and faster journeys. Not only should service match that of the past, it needs to better it.

According to Wikipedia Metropolitan Line trains ran at 70mph until the 1990s when they were reduced to 50mph to help maintain the ageing trains. The line speed was also dropped, affecting Chiltern services also. As new Metropolitan Line trains are introduced we need to push for a train and line speed increase as quickly as possible. The new trains are initially set to have a top speed of 62mph, however we should push for 70mph to be reinstated at the earliest opportunity.

Chiltern Railways services need to call at Rickmansworth station during peak periods. Without these Rickmansworth remains underserved compared to all other stations on the line, most being much smaller in size and far less used than Rickmansworth station. Chiltern don’t seem to be required to serve Rickmansworth during the peak, so an argument needs to be put to the regulatory bodies for this to be required in the future.

Still not convinced?

In part 3 we’ll be looking at how the service compares with others today and highlight some stats that will show that there’s little to inspire in the service we receive.

For 3/4 of a year I’ve commuted from Rickmansworth to central London. On a good day it can be passable and tolerable. On a bad day it can be extremely long, awfully crowded and thoroughly uncomfortable. Now, I’ve commuted from a good few places in London in the past and have become used to busy, basic inner-London commuter trains. However, moving beyond the boundaries of London made me hope that a better commute would accompany the other improvements in living standard. So far I’ve not been impressed.

My feeling is that the service could and should be better. While changing the status quo with large transport operators is unlikely to ever be easy, this does not put me off trying. After all, if we don’t make our grievences known, why should we expect anything to change? Action may not produce quick results, but fighting our corner and arguing for a decent service can only help going forward.

A big part in making an argument is to be informed and empowered. Most commuters may be all too familiar with their own commute but are likely unaware how it compares with commutes on other, similar routes. Perhaps if they did they’d feel all the more compelled to taking action. Many facts and figures that would assist a campaign aren’t made very public friendly, however they are out there if you know where to look.

In this series of blog posts I’m going to try to better empower other commuters to make their views known and hopefully also reveal just how good or bad commuters in Rickmansworth and the local area actually have it.