To England

September 19, 2022 to September 20, 2022

We had a very nice couple of days in Turnhout with Ludo where we were able to catch up on a bit of rest before embarking on our train journey to England. Ludo was a predictably excellent host and got on very well with the newest addition to our family, despite the mess Kevin made of his tablecloth.

Reminders of Ludo’s toy shop owning days were everywhere!

Midday on the 19th and we were ready for departure. Ludo joked that it looked like Kevin was off for a tandem skydive as I strapped him to my chest. “And this is the parachute,” I said as I pulled on one of our backpacks.

It was a two kilometre walk through town to the station, and we arrived at 13.30 with plenty of time before our train at 14.04.

But it wasn’t our train. On closer inspection of the display we could see that the 14.04 to Brussels had been cancelled, as had the 15.04. The next train wasn’t until 16.04! Dea went over to the ticket office on the other side of the station while I stayed with Kevin and the bags. After a while a man came along and told me that the trains were cancelled and that we needed to get on the yellow replacement bus that was waiting on the other side of the tracks at a bus station. So I gathered up the baby and all the bags and dragged everything over, but by the time I got there the bus had left.

Dea appeared with some girls who were also trying to get the same train to inform me that we needed to get on a replacement bus. “Yes it just left,” I said. But the girls said that the bus would drive passengers to the next town and then come back for us, so we just had to wait. So we waited, and we waited. It was an interesting place to sit and wait. There was a very eclectic mix of people at the station, most of whom were not trying to get any trains. There were a lot of youngsters, many with backgrounds from outside of Europe, who used the station as a place to hang out, and we had to occasionally move to avoid Kevin getting too high.

The bus never came back. We decided we would have to get the 16.04 train instead, but then that got cancelled too. There had been some sort of accident on the line and it was obviously taking a long time to get it open again. The man in the ticket office was worse than useless, insisting that the bus was running every 20 minutes despite the fact there had been no sign of it for two hours. There was at least a bit of entertainment each hour when the people wanting to catch the 15.04 and then the 16.04 came rushing about looking for the replacement bus that wasn’t there. We explained to them that it probably wasn’t coming and they all ended up making their own way towards Brussels by other paid buses that were leaving the station frequently. Dea and I remained patient though and thankfully we were rewarded when the 17.04 train appeared. Three and a half hours at Turnhout station wasn’t such a bad way to spend an afternoon in the end.

The train was almost empty at first but got busier over the hour and a half it took to reach Belgium’s capital. Kevin was his usual happy self on trains, looking at everything and smiling at everyone. He was so charming that he made us friends with three students from Bangladesh who had been sitting opposite us.

Our train brought us effortlessly into the heart of the big city and we emerged among the hustle and bustle and the big buildings three hours behind schedule. Thankfully we had decided to split our journey over two days so the delay hadn’t cost us more than a few hours rest in the apartment we had booked close to the station. It was getting late by the time we got there but it was really fine for what we needed - a place to lay our heads before an early start the next day.

Spotted in Brussels - the young adventurer Tintin

Kevin getting in the mood for dancing the night away.

The view from our balcony. It was actually an excellent apartment for the price. Maybe we’ll be back one day.

The next morning we had to be up very early for our Eurostar to London. We had received a message advising us to get there at least two hours before departure. It was the morning after the Queen’s funeral in London and we were worried that there might be extra security checks and more delays getting into London. But when we got there at seven am it was a breeze getting through. Our bags needed to go through an X-ray machine but there were no queues and passport control was made easy by the smiling baby we had with us who charmed everyone. So we ended up spending almost two hours in a crowded waiting room.

At least we had time to introduce Kevin to a bit of English culture.

Sorry to disturb you Kevin, but this is important.

We thought we would spend it in the corner by the red phone box, but we were soon bumped up to a priority boarding area. The perks of having a baby just keep on coming! That meant we were the first ones on the Eurostar this morning. Well, apart from the people who had taken earlier trains of course!

It was our first time on the Eurostar. It is basically just a train, but it is a nice train and it goes very fast, almost 300 kilometres per hour across the countryside of Belgium and France. The Channel Tunnel is also basically just a tunnel, although I missed the triumphant moment of us emerging out into England as I was in a toilet changing a nappy at the time.

A little known fact: 287 km/h translated into French is...

And translated into Dutch it is 293 km/h! Bet you didn’t know that!

We arrived in London on time and there were no extra security checks, which was good as we only had a two hour window to get four kilometres across London to Paddington for our onward train. We had been worried about this part of the journey as we thought the tube might be packed with people still in London after the funeral. We had even considered walking the four kilometres but decided to try our luck on the underground first. It was very good that we did! There were two trains to Paddington a minute after each other, so we let everybody else get on the first one and then had the second one all to ourselves.

Our tube connection across London was the bit we were most worried about...

But our luck took another turn when we arrived at Paddington rail station to see that almost all trains were cancelled due to some damaged power lines. This was really not what we needed! At least we found a seat in the packed waiting area which was really good as Dea was carrying the sleeping Kevin on her. Then there was an announcement over the tannoy system that they would soon be carrying out a fire alarm test.

Dea thought this young businessman was funny with his little backpack trying to fit in with the old men in suits.

All smiles, just before the announcement about the fire alarm test.

But it turned out to be another good twist to the plot, as it forced us to step outside of the station and actually see a bit of London. We didn’t see much, just sitting on a bench outside, but the steady stream of red buses and black cabs driving past left us in no doubt where we were. And had we been so inclined we could have popped over the street to the tacky gift shop and bought a towel with the Queen’s face on. But we didn’t.

Once we were confident that the fire alarm test was over we made our way back inside, Dea to sit with Kevin and me to go to a little Sainsbury’s supermarket inside the station and buy supplies. I was surprised that it didn’t cost too much in the shop and, assuming we were in for a very long wait, I loaded up my basket with goodies. Muffins and salads and crisps and fruits and biscuits and juices all went in there until the basket was overflowing. I then made my way over to the self checkouts, scanned each item through, smugly pressed the zero when asked how many plastic bags I needed, and flashed my card to pay for my goods. My payment was accepted and the self service machine thanked me and told me to pick up my items and go. I then looked down at my many items piled up on the counter and realized that I was probably going to struggle to carry them all. I had no bag with me at all, but I gave it a good go, struggling to scoop everything up into my arms. I could feel the queue behind me growing ever more impatient with each failed attempt. Eventually I got everything and headed for the exit, only for a packet of biscuits to fall to the floor. This was a desperate moment. I looked down at them in despair. My hands were so full, I had no chance of picking them up so I began kicking them along instead, like a fool. As I exited the supermarket into the train station concourse a man took pity on me and picked my biscuits up for me. “Oh thank you,” I said, “if you could just put them under this elbow for me.” And he did just that, and then I had both my hands full and a packet of biscuits under my arm, and I took two steps and a packet of crisps fell on the floor. The man went to pick them up. “It’s okay!” I said, “I’m fine now.” And I proceeded to kick the crisps across the railway station, like a fool, over to Dea, who was thankfully sitting not too far away, and was too hungry and too used to me doing things like this to pretend not to know me.

Then I went over to the board just to check, and miraculously our train was suddenly running, and it was already on the platform, so we had to pack all the food away and get on a train.

This was the first train out of Paddington to Cornwall for some time and it was packed full of people. After Reading there was no space at all - the aisles were completely jammed with people standing and nobody else could get on. Luckily we had seats but there was no chance of getting up to the toilets to change Kevin until Exeter, when things finally settled down. But the whole journey Kevin was so patient and well behaved, sitting with us, cheering everybody up with his charming smile and cute noises. He really is a born traveller! Even after six hours on trains through the day he still seemed to be loving it as we reached the Cornish coast and eventually stepped off the train in Liskeard.

From the train station it was a two kilometre walk to my parents’ house. They had offered to pick us up in the car of course, but they weren’t surprised when we refused. Well, having made it this far only by bikes and boats and trains, it would have felt a bit silly to get in a car! And six weeks after we set off from our front door in Denmark we finally arrived at another front door, and prepared Kevin to meet his English grandparents for the very first time.

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Rachael AndersonWow! What an adventure, glad you made it! I laughed so hard about your trying to get all the food you bought back to where you were sitting. I’ve had similar incidents but never that bad.
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