Have certainly had some most interesting adventures these
past three months. Both physically and
mentally. Overall I think I have laughed
at myself more in the past three months than I have for the past five
years.
If you have ever watched the comical series ‘Miranda’ you
will chuckle at her baffooness – her clumsiness, her weird and inapt thought
patterns. There have been many occasions
where I have felt like a pint-sized Miranda.
None more so than my Liverpool experience – but others come to mind –
the smashing of a large crystal glass across a large marble floor – the
dropping of a large, full bottle of olive oil all over someone’s kitchen floor
– the dropping and smashing of a valuable glass liquidiser jug - burping loudly
in a busy and full railway station café – tripping and landing in the lap of
some poor fellow passenger in a train - the silencing of an Irish pub by merely
walking in – the directing of peak hour traffic in the huge metropolis of the
Shropshire village in Chun - but the
night in Liverpool when I managed to evacuate an entire central city hotel would
probably as rate the best achievement yet.
I laughed out loud at myself at the time and still laugh out
loud whenever retelling the story to those who keep wishing to hear it again
and again.
At the time I did not think it warranted a story for the
blog. But it’s wet and inside day today
and only a few hours ago I regaled the story once more to friends and thought I
should record it for future memories.
When I am dead and departed an inscription can be put on my tombstone – She evacuated the Liverpool Parr Street Hotel.
The beginning
Had visited Dumfries in Scotland and decided to drive my
little rental car back to Wales via a night’s stopover in the grand city of
Liverpool. It was almost thirty years
since last visiting Liverpool and I had been told the city had reinvented
itself and was now a city well worth visiting. So went onto my favourite
booking site, Latebooking.com, and at the last minute booked myself into an economic
and very central hotel, informing them I should be checking in between 4 to 5pm
on the day booked.
I was pleased with my booking as the hotel website had shown
that it was unique and very much aligned with the revamping of Liverpool as it
was a renovated warehouse-come-music-recording-studio which still operated as a
recording studio on one floor with two other floors having being turned into
hotel accommodation. With it being only two blocks from the regenerated port and
wharves and a couple of blocks away from the Liver and Cunard buildings it
meant I would step out of my hotel door straight into the heart Liverpool’s culture
and history.
Ayr – Commonwealth Games
The night before driving to Liverpool I had stayed in a
B&B in a Scottish coastal town called Ayr, in the county of Ayrshire. That stay was a mini experience in itself as
the town is just south of Glasgow where that night saw the Glaswegians host the
opening of the Commonwealth Games. I
would like to say I spent the night watching the opening of the Games on some
large outdoor screen somewhere among the heartiest of south Glaswegian sports
fanatics, but try as I might, one would almost never had known the Games were
about to start as I wandered every street and square and park in the central
area and never found a big screen anywhere to enjoy sharing the experience. Popped my head into the odd pub where there
was a TV screen showing the ceremony and enjoyed a pint or two for the first
hour but the atmosphere was not quite the rah-rah I had expected. I was hungry and am not a fan of pub meals
or food, that stodgy staple diet of regular pub attendees is not for me,
particularly when viewing some of those portly regulars tucking into their
chips and deep fried. So sadly I decided
to dine solo and resort to yet another trip to the local supermarket to
purchase a ready-made salad, some LOVELY smoked Scottish salmon, a crunchy
bread roll or two, and of course a couple of mini bottles of wine for £1.75
each and retreat to the welcoming softness of the B&B kingsize bed to
spread myself an indoor picnic, propped up with pillows, television remote
control in one hand, a glass of wine in another and the picnic laid out on the
duvet around me.
Sad. But I did still
enjoy it.
British Traffic Jam
So, next day, it was goodbye to Ayr and off to Merseyside
and Liverpool for the afternoon and night.
Because it was a beautiful day, I decided not to rush to
Liverpool but to take my time travelling down the Scottish coastline to view
the scenery and stop to smell the sea air at leisurely intermittent intervals. Then it was inland, through alluring, rolling
hills and forests on the way to the motorway that would take me directly into
Liverpool. Eventually. Via the M65.
But why hurry? … there was ample time and the scenery too picturesque to
not take my time and enjoy. I stopped at
little places to take in more views, enjoy the gloriously hot summer day, and take
more snapshots for the memory banks; even stopped to sip my last cup of
Scottish tea at a motorway cafe.
Then back onto the M65 to merrily drive the little rental
with all windows down and the radio blaring out classic 60’s and 70’s music for
me to bellow out without the inhibition of others within hearing range,
thankfully, for them. It is a glorious
thing to do – travelling solo, hot day, all windows open and music blaring;
hair blowing with the breeze. Until … driving
over a rise of the motorway was the view of four lanes of the motorway traffic
half a mile ahead, all at a dead stop. In
moments my little car was in the queue
with all the others, idling and not moving.
From there it was a five hour experience of enjoying sitting in the
infamous and traditional and classic British traffic jam.
Fortunately I had a stocked supply of water in the car –
those that did not would have perished after a mere hour in the jam as the heat
of the day was the hottest on record for the year and in this country the sun
keeps shining at that time of the year until almost 10pm at night – so even at
8pm the heat inside the non-moving cars was unbearable.
I was not daunted by being jammed in this traffic stand-off,
but, I did begin to worry about my hotel booking. After all, I had stated I would be checking
in between 4 to 5 pm and by this time knew it would be a minimum of 10 pm
before I would get into Liverpool and by that time they may have let my booking
go to someone who walks in off the street.
I had a mental picture of me wandering the Liverpool streets at
midnight, trying to find accommodation.
And impossible task and one which would no doubt see me bunking down for
the night inside my little two door car – not an option.
The obvious thing to do would be to ring the hotel to let
them know I would be eventually checking in; that is if one had the phone
number to the hotel. I had diarised the
name, street address, postal code, booking reference and confirmation number
but had not diarised the hotel phone number. Whilst I had cell phone coverage
on the motorway, I did not have any Wifi connection and therefore the PC was
impotent. I began texting all my UK
friends and family to have them look the number up and text it back to me.
Thank goodness for modern
technology
No one in the UK responds to texts when they are urgent
ones. At least, they did not on this
day.
After an hour of waiting for someone, anyone to respond to
my pleading texts I had a light bulb idea.
Jason, my friend Jason, in Whakatane, New Zealand. He would help me out. It was only 6 o’clock in the morning in New
Zealand but I knew Jason was a very, very, very earlier riser – or if not up
and out of bed at 6am he sleeps with his iPhone tucked under his earlobe and
would be guaranteed to respond to a maiden
in distress on the M65 in the English countryside.
And he did. Within
three minutes of my texting him I received back a whole website front page copied
onto the text with phone number, address, web addresses and anything else one
could want to know about the hotel. Yet
again white man’s magic and Kiwi ingenuity saved the day. One call to the hotel solved the
problem. Mind you, it took a while to
organise and confirm they would keep the booking for me as the person who
answered the hotel line had a very heavy accent that I could not define –
sounded very black African, from my perspective (or maybe it was a Caribbean
accent?) but did manage to comprehend, eventually, that he would be the person
I would meet when eventually arriving at their front doors at whatever time of
night.
The hotel lift
At 10.30 pm my little rental car pulled up outside the
weirdest looking hotel, it looked anything but a hotel and at that time of night looked most uninviting. It appeared to be a warehouse only.
Went to the front door, rang
the night bell. A very tall, overweight, pasty, young white man answered the
door and greeted me in the African accent I had heard on the phone. It was the same man. The African accent was not African. It was Liverpudlian. I had forgotten they had their own strong accent and had presumed the phone voice was another nationality. He was a scouse. But I could not understand him. I
had to rely on lip reading to grasp some of the quick phrases he spoke and
link the phrases to the odd noun I could define and hope that my head nodding, smiles
and facial gestures were appropriate to whatever it was he was saying.
Once inside it then looked like a hotel, a nice foyer, nice decor.
Check in done, room key uplifted and the young-black-African-speaking-white-Liverpudlian-young-man
picked up my case and indicated he would walk me to my room. This meant crossing the foyer to one of the
oldest cage lifts I have seen since I was a child some 30+ years ago.
One of those lifts that had two old metal doors, the first
heavy outer door that concertinas open with the clunking, clanging noises of
old metal and screws rubbing against one another. Then the second, inner door made of the same
metal, with the same heaviness and the same clunking and clanging as one heaved
it open from right to left. One then
steps inside and has to clunk and clang the outer metal door shut – which never
quite shuts at first attempt so one has to reopen it then use both hands and full
body force to clunk and clang it harder and faster in the hope it eventually
gets to the attachment which will then allow us to close the second inner
door. One repeats the performance with
this door and clunks and clangs that shut, then pushes the appropriate button
which should then automatically have the lift take us to the correct
floor. It does, eventually. It takes a good few ten seconds before the
old mechanical engineering begins to chug into gear and eventually, with one
initial, sudden jerk, begin to move ever so slowly up. Ever so slowly. These lifts always feel they are moving up or
down in inches per minute.
Eventually it
reached my level, level two. Then the
procedure of exiting the lift has to be repeated, in reverse, to that which we
did when entering.
The night porter-reception man was most friendly and engaged in
conversation all the while of taking me to and up the lift to my room. I had no idea what he was talking about but
he was smiling during conversation so I smiled back and nodded and agreed. As he was opening the lift doors to exit I
commented about the grand age of the lift and the difficulty of opening and
closing the doors and how one would not want to be in a hurry if you had to use
the lift in any emergency.
He responded by telling me that it would probably be easier
to use the stairs to come and go from reception and that he would be at
reception all night and should I require anything at all to just pop down the
stairs to reception and he would assist in any request.
Things were heating
up
It was after 11 pm when I was finally directed into my hotel
room. Or, it would be better described,
into my hotel oven. I walked into a room
that had had the sun shining directly into it all that day, the hottest day the
UK had recorded. I had walked into a
wall of heat. I looked for the air
conditioning controls. There were
none. I looked for the air conditioning
units. There was none. I looked to open the windows but this was an
old converted warehouse and whilst there were ample windows only one window
opened outwardly from its top and only opened a mere three inches. Not enough to make the slightest bit of difference
to the horrendous room temperature. It was
so hot in the room that by now my under garments were totally soaked and the
outer garments were sticking to my wet skin.
I had had enough of truly sticky, sweat make heat whilst sitting in the car during my five hour motorway hold up. That was barely bearable, this room heat was unbearable heat.
This was not good enough – it was nearly 11.30 at night, I was tired, I was grumpy, I was dirty, I was sweaty - and I knew I could not just check out of this hotel and find another at this time of night. If there was no ventilation or
air conditioning in the room I would head back down to reception to either be
checked into an air conditioned room, or management would have to find some
other remedy for this very grumpy, tired, hot and sweating guest who was still
having to pay £80 for a mere few hours stay (believe me - £80 or $NZ160 is
cheap in this country!).
Wait for it
Quickly unpacked bag then headed out of my room to go down
to reception.
One look at the empty
elevator shaft and the decision was made to head down the stairs to find my
lovely Liverpudlian night reception man.
Into the stairwell and quickly down the first set of twelve
stairs, turn, then down the next set of twelve stairs, turn, then down the
next, turn, then down the next, turn, then down the next and through the big,
heavy, wooden door at the bottom to step through into the hotel lobby.
Weeeoooo weeeooooo weeeeoooo weeeeoooo – the LOUD
alarms went – in triplicate – from every direction. Weeeeoooo weeeeoooo weeeeoooo from my left,
from my right, from behind me, from above me
… weeeeoooo weeeeoooo
weeeeoooo …..
Oops … it was no co-incidence that the sound of the
weeeeoooo weeeeoooo and my opening the big, heavy, wooden door happened to be
exactly synchronised. Weeeeoooo
weeeeoooo …
Oops. I spun on my
heels and quickly stepped back inside and tried to quietly reshut the big door
in the hope that it would stop the fire alarm sounding. Then perhaps no one would really notice or
take notice of the few seconds of weeeeoooo weeeeoooo.
Door shut. Weeeeoooo weeeeoooo weeeeoooo Well, that didn’t work.
I looked back at the door and down below the big metal
opening lever that runs across the door at waist length was an old and tatty
piece of A4 paper cellotaped BELOW the lever at crutch level for crutch to
read. It read ‘Do not exit this
door. It is alarmed.’
Well, crutch read it but eyes didn’t and, unlike most men,
my brain is not in my crutch, it is placed behind my eyes so therefore the sign
was rendered useless with its stupid placement.
Meanwhile, Weeeeoooo
weeeeoooo weeeeoooo
Oh dear – I turned and saw no other exit door so retreated
back up one flight of stairs to meet a small number of people heading down the very
stairs I had earlier descended and heading for the same door on the landing
where I was heading.
We all went out the door together onto an open mezzanine floor
that overlooked the reception area.
Looking down at the area were a lots of funny people running in all directions. There were flashing red lights on the ceiling
and on the walls, flashing with the synchronising of the weeeeoooo weeeeoooo. There
were three uniformed hotel staff members rushing around in different directions
going in and out of other doorways to and from where ever – there was my nice
Liverpudlian reception man standing behind reception with another man looking
up into an electrical fuse-box on the wall where there weremore red lights
flashing above and below it.
There were more people coming out the door from the
stairwell behind me, in various states of attire. Meanwhile
Weeeeoooo weeeeoooo weeeeoooo
People were exiting and pouring out the hotel front
doors. It actually looked like mayhem
from above. Like an ants nest of total
confusion, but ants’ confusion is organised confusion. This was not.
Oops, me thought.
What do I do now?
I rushed down the stairs across the lobby and to the reception
desk where the chaps were pulling out fuses and flipping switches and trying
anything to stop the incessant weeeeoooo
weeeeoooo weeeeoooo and the red lights illuminating everything.
“I did that!” I declared loudly, trying to be heard over the
din but at that point we could all hear, woooo-oo woooo-oo woooo-oo … I looked
toward hotel front doors and pulling up outside was one great big, red light
flashing, very red fire engine.
“I did that,” I loudly repeated to the two behind the
desk. They stopped their switchboard
activity, turned and looked, “I did it. You told me to come down the stairs to
reception and I did and went out the door at the bottom. But the sign is BELOW
the handle and I didn’t see it.” Decided
it was a good time to turn the blame back on them rather than stand sheepishly
admitting that I had made an error. It
was, after all, their fault for bad placement of sign and I used that in my
capacity of being the offended rather than the offender.
“There’s no fire, it was me who set the alarms off. You told me to come down to reception if I
needed anything so I came down the stairs to get a couple of fans in my room
because it is far too hot to expect any human to stay in there for the night,
unless you have an air conditioned room I can move to.” All this while firemen were running to and
from their engine to the switch board, more people were coming down the stairs
and exiting the building, then ‘neee-uu neee-uu neee-uu’ of the police
cars.
Suddenly the entire foyer area was full of firemen, police,
hotel guests and staff, all rushing in total opposite direction with the Weeeeoooo weeeeoooo weeeeoooo still going and
red alarm lights still flashing.
“You want what?” enquired my nice Liverpudlian receptionist.
“Fans, big fans, it’s stinking hot in that room – it’s
unliveable,” again using defence attack.
“And you need to do something about that sign on the fire
door, it’s stupid where it is, no one would see it, not just me. It needs
fixing.”
“Oh, OK,” he responds, “what room number are you?”
“224,” I replied and turn on my heels to head back to the
stairs from which even more people were quickly scurrying down from.
I climbed the stairs to my room, fighting the flow of hotel
guests on the stairwell as they came down while I went against the flow and
headed up. Surprisingly not one of them
stopped me to advise me there was a fire alarm – it was like Moses parting the
water, they made way for me as I continued up to the my second floor.
Fan-tastic
My fans arrived, within fifteen minutes. Just after all the
alarms were turned off. Two of
them. Big fans. I plugged each one into a socket on either
side of my lovely king size bed and faced them in the direction of my now near
naked body laying atop the bed linen; turned the bedside light off, lay my head
on the pillow and went into a very deep and well-earned sleep.
