Saturday morning I joined Richard (leather queen) to go spend a day at the races in Ascot. Unlike when I had been Horse racing before we were told we had to dress formally. Gentlemen should wear both a Jacket and Tie. The ladies were all dressed in beautifull dresses and either hats or hair pieces.
We arrived at Waterloo at 11:00AM and you could tell that there were either a lot of people off to Ascot or there weree an incredibly large number of Weddnings occuring that day. We grabbed some food, bought our tickets and found our way to the Train. It was heaving. We walked up the platform with litterally hundreds of people. By the time the train pulled out of the station there was not a single seat available. As it pulled into Clapham Junction you could tell it would be a squash by the sheer number of people on the platform waiting to board. We all pushed down and got friendly on the train, but it does proove that the train companies are utterly useless. They know events are occurring on this date and yet they dont even extend the train lengths to accommodate the extra people. Tell me this. How does it make sense to have a single company opporating the service on a certain route. How is that competition? Surely that leaves them as the fat cat with all the power and the people with no choice. They charge the earth, offer poor service and not enough facilities to acccommodate the number of passengers. It kinf of typifies all that is wrong about Britain. Corrupt systems that are innefficient and overly expensive.
As we poured out of the train at Ascot we made our way to the racecourse and started with a picnic and some Champagne that several people had bought with them. I didnt think they would allow you to take food or drink in.
We then moved to the Premier Enclosure where an usher quickly pointed out that while we had Premier enclosure tickets and could put down our blanket on the grass you were not allowed to picnic in the Premier section. Clearly posh people are too upmarket to bring their own food. Instead we went inside and wacthed the races from the raised seating area and our section on the fourth floor with great views of the finish line. All in all, I won 2 races and left even on the day (Lucky Bitches).
Made our way back to the station and stopped for a drink at the Station Tavern. Then took a train back to Waterloo. It was one of those days where the train constantly stopped and just sat on the track without any notification as to why. It seemed to take forever to get back to the city. As the train pulled into Ascot and we all boarded it was clear there were way more poeple than there would be seats. The prospect of standing for an hour not something anyone was relishing. As we boarded the section immediately in front of us was the First Class Carriage. Using the old rule that someone said was legal we followed the fact that you are allowed to sit in First if there are no seats in standard class. We sat the whole way home.
In the evening I met Dusan at Waterloo and made our way to Tooting for dinner at Emily & Colins. The lovely best girl Gill was there too with her friend Sarah and we all enjoyed Champagne and a stew for dinner followed by Karaokee in the lounge. I swear the Karaokee machine made me sound far worse than I usually do.
We took a taxi home to enjoy a pleasant journey rather than face the public transport network at close to midnight.
Sunday lunchtime I made my way to Soho for a drink and catch up with Kenton whom I have not seen in months. We met in the Duke of Welly for a drink then onto Balans for lunch. All in all a friend filled fun weekend and felt like the official kick off event of the summer.
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