Sunday 18 November 2018

Trip to Cardiff - Not Exactly Going to Plan....

When my Young Man got here, he wanted to re-watch some Peter Capaldi episodes of Doctor Who. We chose Heaven Sent and Hell Bent. The story begins and ends in a diner in Nevada, which turns out to be the Tardis that Me and Clara stole from Gallifrey, and which is now stuck in that form ("Awesome" says Clara).
"You know that's in Cardiff?" I said casually.
So we looked it up - it's called Eddie's Diner, on Mermaid Quay, and we planned a day out to go to see it (and have lunch there) and also visit a comic shop that I'd found near the railway station on a previous visit.
Online, we checked out the opening times, and the buses that go to the Bay, so we were prepared.

The trip down started on the T14 school/college bus, which only goes as far as Brecon, but we only had about ten minutes to wait for the T4 to take us on to Cardiff. We got off at the Castle, checked with the driver to find out which bus stop we needed to come back, and went for coffee at the Rendez-Vous in the Queen's Arcade.
Then we ambled round to Forbidden Planet and made a few purchases - I found Art Matters by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell, and part 5 of the Green Arrow story I've been slowly collecting - and I know I have too many books that I haven't read yet already!
Then we walked down towards the railway station, and this is where things started to go wrong.
I couldn't remember exactly where the comic shop had been, so after a couple of false starts we decided to get the bus to the Bay.
We got on the No 8. It clearly said "Cardiff Bay" on the destination display. After a while, though, we got a bit concerned. The part of Cardiff we were going through was an area of multicultural small shops, which was interesting but unfamiliar - and surely we should be at the Bay by now?
I went to ask the driver - who was going to Heath Hospital, in exactly the opposite direction to the Bay, but swore blind that he'd changed the destination display before we got on. All he could do was to drop us at the next bus stop, where we crossed the road to get the next bus back. We just managed to scrape together the right amount of change for the fare. So now we had to go all the way to the city centre, and then down to the Bay.
On the way, we passed a parade of shops which included the comic shop we'd been trying to find. It had closed down.
By the time we got to Mermaid Quay, it was almost 2pm.
The last bus back to Hay went from the Castle at 3.10pm.
We found the Diner on the map of Mermaid Quay, went round the corner - and it was closed.
By this time we were both ravenous, and had a quick scout round to find somewhere that could feed us fast. The Young Man suggested Wagamama - which was brilliant. We were served the chicken ramen in rich sauce with a pottery cup of green tea in record time, and gobbled it down. (I'll certainly try the one in Hereford now, for a more leisurely meal).
Then we dashed round the corner to the taxi rank - we were in no mood to try the buses again - to get back to the Castle.
It was only when we had sat down on the bus, certain in the knowledge that it was going in the right direction, that we felt able to relax.
By the time we got back to Hay Castle (after 3 changes of driver!) we were exhausted.

I don't think we will be going to Cardiff again for a long time.

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