GeoffBrady

I was rather anxious about going down to London Kings Cross Station. Family had told me that I would not be able to stay at Heathrow Airport overnight, which was my plan. The alternative was to stay at Kings Cross until morning, then head to Heathrow at about 5 am. On arrival, at about ten to midnight, I wandered round a little, searching for some place to sit in the station until dawn. There were plenty of seats: people didn’t seem to want to hang round. It was quite cold so I got a tea and a cinnamon danish (you can’t beat cinnamon danish!) and settled on a cold metal seat.

Soon after, a drunk appeared. It wasn’t immediately apparent that he was drunk, in fact I only noticed him after he projectile vomited what could only be described as “purple”. Clearly dazed and also ridiculously apologetic, he hovered around this purple until an attendant came and tried to clean it up himself, including some rather comical falls over his own mess.

Having established my place in the station for the night, it was just a waiting game until morning. I started playing games such as “looking for every letter of the alphabet in signs at the station” – ‘J’ was quite hard to find. It wasn’t until five minutes before the last train departed (about 1.35 am) that I was informed that the station shuts after the last train, and that I had to leave.

So I wandered round and stopped at the second hotel I came to, Hotel California. I smiled and withdrew the urge to hum The Eagles as I entered. Getting a room proved to be quite a problem for the man on the desk, but he managed to fit me in at the reduced rate of £40 for the night (read three hours). After struggling up ten flights of stairs with my rather large suitcase, there I settled until morning came.