Blighty 2025 - Wizarding in Watford

Today was the long-planned trip to Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford. Oh, alright, Leavesden, but it's still Watford.

Tickets cost a small fortune, and the reduction in price for Charlie was miserly, but this place is something akin to the Theme Parks in Florida, so will be charging Florida prices. Still, you only go once, don't you? Sorry, I forgot, you only go twice. Charlie, of course, was on a high as he was about to visit his beloved Hogwarts Express.

It's a shade over seventy miles from Shipton to Leavesden, an hour and a half according to Google, but what does Google know? I had prevaricated about cutting across country to reach the A41 and drop in from the north west, avoiding the dreaded M25, because it was going to be Friday afternoon. But that was nearer two hours, and there looked to be roadworks around Thame and Aylesbury so I thought sod it, lets go A40, M40, M25. It's only a few miles on the awful Orbital. That, gentle reader, was my big mistake.

We set off just before 2pm, with tickets for the tour timed for 4:30. The A40 to Oxford was busy but moving, then around North Oxford it was busy and not moving. Roundabouts, traffic lights and Friday afternoon traffic do not combine well. We crawled, stopped and started around the north of that great city and it seemed to take an age to reach the motorway, although I wasn't watching the time.

The M40 was busy, but moving at a good clip, as were we, until I saw a sign saying delays on the M25, and they said delays of 45 minutes to an hour. DW did a quick check on her phone to see where the delay was and sure enough, an "incident" between the M40 and the Watford turn had the entire section stopped. Why had I not gone with my first instinct and used the A41?

Thinking quickly, I thought I might try approaching from the south, using my old commuting route to Northwood, through Ruislip and Moor Park. But, as I knew would happen, every road within a few miles of the M25 was gummed up something rotten, with schools kicking out, the Friday getaway and the mess on the motorway all combining. We moved very slowly towards Moor Park, then to Rickmansworth, but then I let the Satnav take over, and all of a sudden we were on the road to the M25 again, albeit just one junction from the Watford turn. I did try to work out a cross-country route while stuck in solid line of traffic north of Rickmansworth, but when I went to make the turn, a vehicle recovery truck turned in first and blocked the entire road as it was too wide to get past all the cars coming out of that road. Once again I thought sod it, and carried on to the M25, given that the previously solid line of stopped traffic was now moving. Once on the M25, busy though it was, we were moving, and in a few minutes we were diving off onto the... wait for it... A41, to get into Leavesden. We were well past our allotted ticket time, but the good people at the tour didn't seem to mind. We collected our Golden Snitch for the priority parking that we'd paid for, and rolled into Car Park 1 ready for some wizarding magic.

Almost three hours to do seventy miles. Where's that damned broomstick when you need it?

The tour was very good, of course. Quite a bit more swept up than our last visit, which was probably more than ten years ago. We had a few dancing girls and boys, and some audio-visual special effects to negotiate, but it all added to the experience. When we reached the Hogwarts Express, the loco and a couple of carriages from the films, Charlie was in ecstasy, and had to be dragged away. Twice!

We had a fast food meal, which for the others was vegan, and actually quite good according to them. My eyes watered at the bill, over £40 for burger and chips, hot dog and chips, loaded fries and a drink, but heck, they have us captive. 

Of course these places gouge you in the gift shops, which is why I came out empty handed. Emma splashed the cash, but then she and Charlie were immersed in the whole thing. Me, I resent handing over £20 for a not great quality tee-shirt with the Warner Brothers logo on it when I can get get two comparable quality tee-shirts, without the advertising, in Sainsbury's for £8. But then I'm just a miserable old git.

We spent a good three hours on the tour, and could have spent longer, but tired legs and a tired child caught up with us. Despite my grumbles, I did enjoy it and I'm always amazed at the efforts film makers go to to produce a feature film. Mind you, while millions may have been spent in production, many millions more have been, and are being, earned.

While mingling with so many people on the tour, I was struck by what I consider to be the bad behaviour of some of the other "guests". On the tour there were a lot of people who were not averse stepping part-way into a queue, which is something simply not done in the UK. Then there were the people who walked through a queue rather than walk around it, often nudging others out of the way to do so. The worst for me, though, were the adults who moved around oblivious of the children there. Knocking into them, barging past to stand in front of them, and generally behaving like they weren't there. I don't know about you, but if there are kids around then you take care to make sure that you don't knock into them, and you allow them to see what's going on, and not be so darned selfish. It reminded me of my trip to Disney-hell in Florida many years ago when adults were queue-jumping to get ahead of kids waiting patiently. Goodness I sound old.

The run home was clear, and took an hour and a half, including a stop for petrol, so Google was right all along. Once again I retired early, which was more of a necessity given my advancing years and the pace of this holiday.

Saturday is a "down day", no plans to do anything, just catching up on some rest. Thank goodness.

Blighty 2025 - Unplanned Oxford

 A sound sleep did help, but not as much as I'd have liked, and it was still a stressed morning as everyone started to find their feet in their new surroundings. Still, the shower was nice.

We had another run into Witney to complete the immediate supplies requirement. It was still busy through Burford, where despite a perfectly good, and free, Car Park at the bottom of the town, people were causing all manner of traffic-related problems while they tried to park at the side of the main road. 

Sainsbury's in Witney was very busy, which is something we're not used to, comparatively speaking. Charlie was "wired" and had to be withdrawn from the fray so that Mummy and Grandma could complete their shopping without losing their minds completely. Back at the cottage, Charlie's excitability continued, so his mother decided that a ride on a train might help. With remarkable spontaneity, off we trotted to the village of Charlbury where a reasonably priced train ticket could be had for the seventeen minute run into Oxford.

I'd never been on "The Cotswold Line", and like a lot of Britain's railways, it's been brought back from near death over the past few decades by paying passengers wanting to go into London after moving out into the countryside. The train, a nine(!) car Hitachi set in the dark green of the Great Western Railway company, pulled up at the tastefully refurbished station. (I just read about the station, and it's second platform and double track were reinstated in 2011 after being removed in 1971. The reinstated platform was extended to accommodate the nine car sets in 2018). It had come from Great Malvern and was heading into London Paddington, carrying a fair few more passengers than I'd expected, especially given that it was a Saturday. I pulled a face about the nine car set because that's a very long train compared to the five car sets on most UK Cross Country operated trains that do far longer distances. Indeed, there was even an hourly service in each direction on that route, which kind of knocks spots off Canada's VIA Rail's sad attempt at providing a service with a four car train only four times a day servicing Chatham Ontario.

Anyway, a swift seventeen minutes later we were walking into an incredibly busy Oxford, not looking for anything in particular. Goodness, but Oxford is vibrant. Obviously it's a university town, the university town I suppose, so there are hordes of young people about, but it was also full of day trippers and longer-term, more serious tourists as well. With Charlie in tow, it's not easy to walk around too much, so we visited a Pret A Manger store for a snack, a gift shop for some gifts, and did a small circuit that included Cornmarket Street, the Covered Market, Turl Street and Broad Street. It is a fabulous little town, even when crowded, and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting the UK, and that's not mentioning all the fabulous colleges and museums that you can visit if you stay longer. The high point of the day was witnessing one of Farage's Reform/right-wing "National Strike" demonstrations in town. There were about a dozen "Reformers" waving Union flags (the biggest of which was upside down), two dozen Police officers, and hundreds of counter-demonstrators waving Pride flags and easily out-demonstrating the Reformers. Fun, fun, fun. 

When Charlie started to get anxious about missing the train, we made our way back to the station, and then back to Charlbury and the car. We took a detour around the lanes to get chips from a place in Witney, but the little fellow had crashed out in the car and he wouldn't even eat his vegan nugget thingies when we arrived home. He cuddled with his mum and went to bed, which was really him doing what we all wanted to.

If things go according to plan, we'll go a little further afield tomorrow, but that's another day.