London visit 2010 – day 1 of 6

The trip I did last year took quite a bit out of me as I took the car from the deepest and darkest :-) parts of Wales right down the M4 to central London. Now this wouldn’t be otherwise to bad but for the whole visit being very active and at the end of it was completely exhausted. Not to mention the cold I was nursing at the time.

This was one of the reasons I decided to try the train this time. Very cool, as it turned out to be – the albeit small train station, where I boarded, is almost right on my doorstep – if, of course, your doorstep is about 50 metres outside your house and over a bridge and bloody cold. For those who don’t know or haven’t realised yet, Haverfordwest is not a very big place and walking around it you are quite likely to bump into someone you already met before, as I am a vet this increases the chances dramatically.

This is why I did end up seeing one of my clients on the train with whom I tried to avoid eye contact as much as humanly possible. Now at this point I should elaborate so I don’t look like a complete unsociable pratt. As I said before in our line of work you meet people constantly every day and consequently get recognized a lot on the street. There are two problems with this. First: if you meet a client on the street you sometimes feel you are pushed into a work situation and to be honest, you sometimes would like to get away from people and remain anonymous. The second reason is that you actually might get to be asked a veterinary question and that is sometimes the last thing you want as you rush to get your lunch at Tesco . But hey, this is the way it is and I don’t really complain about these problems (every day) and am usually quite happy to answer your pet-related questions. [CHEESE=ON] Helping animals is the reason I really DID get into this profession.[CHEESE=OFF].

To come back to the client I saw on the train to London. She was travelling with her family and I couldn’t help but overhear that they were going to Llanelli , but getting off the train was taking them to long and did not get off on time so they had to go all the way to Swansea for the privilege – outch.

Went to this excellent Argentinian restaurant El Gaucho in South Kensington last night where I satisfied my taste for lots of beef.