Visiting Time.

Yesterday, I met my friend Stephen in his new hometown of Rothwell, which was my first chance to visit him since he moved about a month ago.

It’s been a bit strange not having him as local as I’m used to for the past few weeks. He had lived in Hitchin for just over a year, but had been based in Stevenage prior to that, so it had always been easy to meet up with little notice. Even when he wasn’t living in the same town as me, he was working here, so I’d often give him a wave when I walked past his shop. He’s the friend I’ve known the longest that I still see regularly, and seldom a week would go by when we wouldn’t meet for what’s become affectionally known as our Old Man Pub Crawls, to swap stories of our various work and life frustrations, and just generally catch up.

The great thing I discovered yesterday was it’s easier and cheaper to get to Steve’s by public transport than I’d originally thought; until then, I’d been looking at trains via London, which were often ridiculously expensive for the distance travelled (sometimes edging toward the £80 mark). What I hadn’t realised was I could get the train from Luton instead of going in and out of London, which only takes fifty minutes and costs around twenty-five quid; it’s a win-win-win-win situation (apart from the having to go to Luton bit).

The distance and the cost wouldn’t have stopped me going ultimately, as I’m not about to lose contact, but the relative difference in price certainly makes it easier to go regularly, and more on the spur of the moment, which is nice to know.

Until yesterday, Steve hadn’t had the chance to try out the local pubs properly, so we did our best to put that right. We also had lunch at his new house, which was very nice and ridiculously cheap for the size; he’s paying the same for a two-bedroom cottage with a garden that he was paying in Hitchin for a one-bed flat; something about that equation isn’t right.