As I always allow far too much time for connections, I had a wait of three hours at London Luton Airport after my flight from Skopje. I tried to get a filter coffee at Pret as they’re a cheap option, but they told me that they had run out. I remained at Pret anyway as they had a power point which suited my needs. At this stage, the commercial transaction was less about food and drink and more about temporary access to electricity whilst sitting in a chair. But, I couldn’t board a coach hungry and so I obtained a breakfast of champions meal deal at the new Sainsbury’s at the airport. Does travel get any more exciting than this?
And is there anything more beautiful than London Luton Airport at sunrise? OK, there probably is, but it’s intriguing watching the light appear whilst also observing already pre-annoyed families wheeling their cases and angry children into the airport.
Mine was the 05:40 which was showing as delayed by six minutes. This didn’t overly worry me, but I was conscious that National Express often saw their delays extend and I only had a thirty minute connection at London Victoria Coach station. I decided to ask the driver of the 05:25 service before if I could get on his coach and he told me that I could do what I liked, which I took as a yes. In fairness, the driver was very friendly and it was early.
Two of us boarded the coach, so I understood the driver’s lack of concern about whether I boarded or not.
I got the emergency exit door seat, although there wasn’t a huge demand for it as the other passenger had sat at the front of the coach. It was too early for a logistical dilemma over seating, so I was pleased at the efficiency of this arrangement. I think this service regularity is more for getting passengers to the airport for their early morning flights, so there is likely usually a surplus of spaces for taking passengers away from the airport.
And safely into London Victoria coach station. As an aside, National Express seems to have been struggling recently and their services rarely seem very full. It’s been a while since I’ve been here and half the services appear to now be run by FlixBus, perhaps an observation that National Express got greedy with their prices and customers walked away. Anyway, it was then time to find the coach that would take me to Bristol.
One of the slight annoyances about Skopje Airport is that I couldn’t complete online check-in in advance, I had to go and see a staff member at the Wizz Air check-in desk to check documents. Despite checking, the staff member at the check-in desks for earlier flights couldn’t check my documents, but he did tell me what desk would be opening and when so that I wouldn’t have to wait in a queue when my flight did open.
It wasn’t the busiest of airports.
The helpful check-in agent told me to wait at precisely this spot at a particular time. I looked like a very experienced traveller at this point and a number of people started to queue behind me.
It worked, it meant I was at the front of the queue and was the first one through the security area and that meant I could have more time in the Primeclass lounge. I accept that there’s more to life than a free coffee and beer in an airport lounge, but there’s no point lingering about when that’s available.
The signage, as ever for Wizz Air, was clear and there wasn’t long to wait despite the aircraft having been delayed.
This will interest no-one other than me, although that’s true for this blog in general, but not only was it the same aircraft but it was also the same row. This photo from my previous flight shows the window seat I had this time, so that’s handy planning in blog imagery terms. Some people arrange their lives around career development, relationships or spiritual growth. I appear to have reached the stage where I am pleased by the efficient reuse of an aircraft seating photograph.
Wizz Air are very good at keeping the cabin relatively dark on late evening flights, they do their usual run of food and drink, but they did it quietly and try to avoid disturbing passengers. I was happy with my randomly allocated window seat as I fell asleep for half the flight.
And safely back into London Luton airport and it was pretty much on-time as the padded schedule had enabled them to catch up. Unusually, there were very long queues for non-UK passport holders, I was through the border in under five minutes but it would have been a longer wait for those without UK or EU passports.
Anyway, this was another £8.99 flight with Wizz Air where I was suitably delighted with the whole arrangement. The aircraft was clean, the crew were friendly, everything was just about on time and it was a stress free experience.
Another journey from Luton Airport, so another little snack at Big Smoke, this time the hot honey chicken tenders and a 0% Guinness. All very agreeable and a suitably balanced pre-flight meal.
And that’s the end of Avalon, the little coffee shop, which apparently had closed just a few hours before. It was always a slightly quirky arrangement with some odd food and drink options, limited seating but always friendly staff. There appears to be a new Costa coming, which I can’t say delights me, but if that’s what the passengers of Luton Airport want, then so be it.
My Lounge and the exciting beer option of 0% Heineken, although you’re only allowed half a bottle at a time. I thought half a bottle was perfectly sufficient.
For about the first time I can remember, the cutlery was clean here. It wasn’t overly busy, this is a perfectly acceptable arrangement although for those not on Priority Pass or similar scheme, it’s expensive to enter for what is offered.
“Plane on the way” means that it hasn’t arrived yet, but they’ll start the boarding process. Efficiency is important and all that, although they called the gate ten minutes early which felt aspirational.
And here it is, sweeping in majestically, which is perhaps overstating the romance of a Wizz Air aircraft at Luton, but one must take glamour where one can find it.
I have a temporary bag which isn’t very rufty tufty so isn’t going to be used for long on these expeditions, I’ll be repurposing it for LDWA challenge events at some point, where it can enjoy a quieter life being shoved into village halls and checkpoint corners rather than exposed to the brutal glamour of low-cost aviation.
The aircraft was G-WUKY which is yet another one that I haven’t been on.
The seating Gods not only gave me an aisle seat, but the other two seats in the row weren’t occupied during the flight.
The prices are slowly creeping up, but they don’t feel unreasonable.
And the sandwich prices. These are very much for the more wealthy people, it’s something that my friend Richard would order if on board, as he has the quiet confidence of a man who knows society needs people willing to keep the premium sandwich sector alive. And actually the premium sector everything…..
Bearing in mind that I had a row to myself, the flight itself was relatively busy. As usual, this was another nicely operated flight with a friendly cabin crew, a clean aircraft and clear announcements from the pilots. No-one applauded when the aircraft landed and there were no issues of note during the flight, so I was once again impressed. Bearing in mind that I had only paid £8.99 for the flight, I felt particularly delighted and the fifteen minute late departure was caught up and we landed five minutes early. That’s the joy of padded schedules…..
There were no more photos as the whole airport arrangement was far more efficient than I had anticipated. Border control took two minutes as there was no stamping of passports just a vague look inside and the airport was clearly laid out. Unusually for me, as I usually get a cheap bus, I had a shuttle from the hotel and that turned up just as I arrived outside. That means I was in a car within fifteen minutes of landing, so I didn’t have a chance to take photos. This efficiency does, admittedly, leave the blog slightly short of content, which is awkward given that the blog is rarely overburdened with plot at the best of times.
Another post for the sake of completion, so there were no major dramas getting from Heathrow to Luton. It was rather odd that I was staying around twenty metres from the country’s major airport and had decided to fly from Luton Airport. Such is the lure of the £8.99 Wizz Air flights. Geographical inconveniences don’t concern me though…..
It was raining so I decided against walking the one hour to Hayes and Harlington railway station.
I don’t find buses very exciting, but this was a handy option which only took around ten minutes. I also appreciate that bus content is not traditionally where great travel writing finds its highest expression, but there we go.
I remember when this was all fields…. Well, I remember it before it was on the Elizabeth Line and it had this fancy frontage anyway.
I might not love buses, but I do like trains and here’s the Elizabeth Line train sweeping in. I got the train into Farringdon to complete a little task involving free food and then decided that I’d walk the 30 minutes to King’s Cross St Pancras as the rain had stopped. I’m a natural athlete me, albeit one whose sporting career is mostly based around refusing to pay for short tube journeys.
The delights of St. Pancras, a really rather beautiful shopping centre with some train lines.
Platform 1 was the train to Corby and that would get me to London Luton Airport Parkway in under 30 minutes. I would add that the rail fare was £4.20 which is rather decent value for money I think bearing in mind I only booked it yesterday.
One day I’ll find getting trains boring, but for the moment, it still excites and delights.
In crawls the train…
I don’t like five seats across as I don’t think trains were originally designed for this, but anyway, it wasn’t that busy. I also provided a free tourist service to the guy who was trying to get to Luton and I didn’t once ask him why he wanted to go to Luton which I think showed considerable restraint and perhaps even personal growth.
Still the worst managed railway station in the country in my view, but I won’t labour that point as I might have drivelled on several times before about it.
I walked the twenty minutes to Luton Airport and passed by the Vauxhall building, now closed down and staffed only by security teams and guard dogs.
And safely at London Luton airport.
And the longest queues which I’ve seen at London Luton, although, to be fair, I was still through in under 25 minutes and I was hardly in a rush as I had, once again, arrived five hours early for my flight. I can imagine that my two loyal blog readers can hardly contain themselves with excitement for the next post….
Carrying on from my previous post, I had settled into the gate area that was past border control and I had gone through the EES (European entry/exit system) and had my passport stamped. My flight was late and then there was an announcement that the flight was now on time and it would be departing from Gate 3. This was fine, until I realised that this gate was in the Schengen area of the airport and I no longer was. This presented me with a problem. I was now on the wrong side of border control, which is not generally where I want to be when an aircraft is quietly preparing to leave without me.
So, I decided to go back to the border guard staff and mention the situation. They were helpful and told me that this was something of a mess, but they allocated me a police officer who walked me to my gate and around the newly opened border control area for the new gate.
This was the scene until around shortly before boarding, as many other passengers hadn’t realised that they were now at the wrong gate. And, soon after this, there was something of a deluge of stressed looking passengers and numerous police officers who I assume had pro-actively rounded everyone up they had realised were in the wrong place. I think that everyone boarded the flight, but the queue for border control was thirty deep when boarding commenced.
With that, it was time for me to board at least. It’s aircraft 9H-WNV, which is yet another Wizz Air aircraft that I hadn’t been on.
Passengers were trickling on rather than the usual rush. The seating Gods had given me a window seat for the 80 minute flight and this was unusually for Wizz Air an aircraft that hadn’t really been cleaned from the last passengers. I think that this was more to do with Wizz Air trying to cut the delay so that we departed on time even thought the aircraft was late in, so more about efficiency than anything else.
And there’s the aircraft I just disembarked from and I knew that this was my last flight for around a month, something I felt friends gave me insufficient sympathy for. Anyway, this was another £8.99 flight from Wizz Air with Multipass and it was smooth, efficient and the cabin crew were friendly as usual. The boarding process was a little sub-optimal, but I take into account the fare that I’ve paid and I can cope without jazz bands, champagne, silk cushions and whatever else decadent passengers might want. I also had some good news that my train from London King’s Cross to Ely was cancelled which meant I arrived into Norwich 75 minutes late and so got the entire £22 rail fare back.
As a slight confession, I like JD Wetherspoon venues and they also drive traffic to this ‘riveting’ blog so there will be more posts about them. If that’s what the public want, then that’s what they get.
I never visited the Banker’s Draft in Bedford as it closed in 2016 and was taken over by the Brewhouse & Kitchen chain, although this in turn has now closed. The image above isn’t one of my photos, it’s from Google Streetview.
Regarding the pub name, the chain noted when it opened that:
“This pub’s name recalls its former use as a bank. This site used to be a branch of Midland Bank. Established in Birmingham during 1836, the bank opened a branch in High Street, Bedford, in the 1890s. Around the time of World War I, it transferred to 115 High Street, remaining at that address until the mid 1990s.”
The later renovation from Brewhouse & Kitchen has made it look less like a bank, but it still very much appeared like one back when JD Wetherspoon had it. Amber Taverns have since purchased the building since the Brewhouse & Kitchen set-up closed in 2024 and it’s now open again as the High Street Social Tap.
I never went into the JD Wetherspoon operated London Hatter in Luton, long since closed but the pub name is still visible on the building.
The building was formerly used by Legends nightclub until 2011 and then JD Wetherspoon spent just under £1 million converting it into a pub. It’s in a location just out of the city centre, so I assume that they were looking for the student trade or similar. It didn’t last long as the closure decision was made in February 2016, which suggests that a fair sum of money was lost here.
The pub took its name from the Londoner who was involved in building the first hat factory in Luton in the early nineteenth century. There were soon over 500 companies making hats in the town and it was an important part of the local economy in the nineteenth century.
As for the pub, it seems from photos inside that there was a professional job with the conversion, despite the rather glum external look of the place.
Continuing my theme of working out which JD Wetherspoon pubs I’ve been to over the years, this is the Swan Hotel in Leighton Buzzard. I visited here with Liam in November 2018, so this is another one that I’ve had been to recently.
Explaining the pub’s history, the chain notes:
“The former Swan Hotel is situated at the Market Place end of High Street. The landmark building, with its statue of a swan atop the façade, was given a grade II listing in May 1975 and dated as ‘early to mid C19’. However, there has been a Swan drinking house on this site for much longer. The earliest reference to it is in the year 1600. The Swan soon developed into the town’s leading coaching inn and ‘posting house’, words which may still be seen on the front of the building.”
It’s not actually evident when it was rebuilt, but it looks to have been around the 1840s. This was a proper coaching inn though, lots of space and it was noted by an author in the twentieth century that “the yard once had stabling for forty horses; garden, piggery, henhouse, garages and stabling for six horses remain”.
The pub caught fire in 1967 but was rebuilt with some improvements, such as a new conservatory area. The former ballroom was converted into bedrooms in the 1990s, but by 2009 and the financial crash it was no longer viable for the operator and they put it up for sale. In came JD Wetherspoon who have done a really rather decent job here at keeping the venue alive.
This is my old staple of chicken wrap and chips, when it cost about £3 or something ridiculous. I do miss this rather simple meal, it’s £9 now including a drink.
And these were delicious until they took all the sugar out.
And a beer. Annoyingly, I had started my Untappd account just one week before this visit, but I evidently wasn’t then in the habit of carefully checking in every beer. So, I can only describe this as some porter I obviously liked the look of at the time.
Obviously I feel the need to look at the reviews and the venue is towards the lower end of the JD Wetherspoon typical scoring. And, yes, I know that I need to get out more to have time to think about this.
“The first major thing thats a issue with this particular Wetherspoons is that they don’t serve real genuine cocoa powder thats dispensed through the hot drinks machine. they give you 1 instant hot chocolate galaxy sachet each time if you need to refill for another hot chocolate which might i add is extremely far less superior than the rest of the other Wetherspoons across the country that actually pour real genuine cocoa powder into an actual machine that dispenses it with milk simultaneously to give you that thick frothy chocolatey genuine warm and lovely Wetherspoons experience. imo it feels like they want to monitor how much hot chocolate you can have and don’t even provide genuine cocoa when you actually want hot chocolate anyway this is a huge disappointment. I also noticed alot of plates are being left with loads of food left still on the plate sometimes food looking nearly untouched. also the plates are left for a very long time until somebody even realizes they have to be picked up for the tables to be cleared and cleaned. also each time you want a refill you have to literally ask the bartender first for another galaxy sachet which feels completely infantilizing. when i asked for more than one sachet they refused to do so stating they will not do this because i could take them home basically implying customers would steal this trash hot chocolate. which wouldn’t even be a concern if they actually had the machine that dispenses hot chocolate in the first place. if you’re a fan of Wetherspoons being a reliable and consistent pub you can bring your family to be fed and drink i would say to skip this one as this one is doing a disservice to the Wetherspoon name.”
This is the challenge JD Wetherspoon venues had when the Government stopped them serving unlimited hot chocolate, a rule which has annoyed me but I try not to let it dominate my life. This pub changed its rules at the same time as all of the other ones. It’s a long review though about not having hot chocolate, I admire the depth of the annoyance.
“Tried to eat in the restaurant to be told , contrary to the licencing law , that the children were not allowed to eat . 8 people including 2 children were now left without anything to eat because weatherspoons rules are different from UK licencing laws. Would not use this or any other weather’s weatherspoons.”
Or it could be that the venue is following their premises licence.
“Okay the food is alright but honestly being sanitary is all they need to sort out, we have just been given cutlery that clearly hasn’t been washed properly as in the photo below. It doesn’t look like it has been in the dish washer at all nor even rinsed off with water.”
The customer has a photo of the cutlery in the review and it is grim. The pub has numerous poor reviews for this, I’m with the customer….
Anyway, back to today once again, I get easily distracted. Checking on the beer situation, they have seven real ales available from a range of breweries, including Greene King Abbot Reserve which is about as good as the brewery gets….
It’s too long ago for me to remember much else about the pub, but it’s certainly a positive thing that the chain has kept it alive and operating.
As part of a little project that will become apparent (as I obviously don’t already have enough) I’m working through a list of JD Wetherspoon outlets that I’ve visited throughout the years. I’ve got to go back to 2017 for the last time I came here, I focused on other pubs when I was in Bedford last year.
The pub’s explanation for the pub name is:
“This pub is named after one of the most widely read books in the English language, written by John Bunyan, who lived most of his life in and around Bedford during the 17th century. Born in 1628, at Elstow near Bedford, his career as a writer and preacher was enriched by deep religious experiences throughout his life.”
The building, which is relatively really quite large, was formerly used as a furniture shop before it was turned into a pub and hotel.
It is so long ago that I came here that I appear to have ordered wine. I’ve matured a lot since then. I can use my wine knowledge here to be able to narrow this down to being a white wine.
For reasons I won’t go into here, this was a free meal so I had more than I usually would. I note my food habits don’t change much though.
This is I think one of the platters that they used to do before the chain shifted to small plates, I assume that’s some sort of chicken in the middle.
A dessert, I can see that someone else was paying….
And an Eggs Benedict for breakfast, very agreeable. I’d add that I stayed at the venue as well as they have rooms here.
Anyway, back to today and I feel the need to look at some of the reviews and this is one of the better rated JD Wetherspoon venues.
“Disgusting. Was in there for my friend’s birthday and she is a very shy person, playing the Wetherspoons game. We were thrilled to see lots of drinks at our table. However, this was interrupted by a foul mouth female manager, raising her voice at us. My friend was starstruck. This lady was telling us that due to a staff error, the drinks we had already started drinking were delivered wrongly to our table. Despite us explaining the situation, this was met with a ‘Shouldnt have drank those drinks’ and a lack of apology. She then further said that the security will throw us out if we didn’t pay the for the entire bill, which we obviously did not order. Not only verbally threatened, but now with a physical fear, my friend, who is 18, was abused and forced to pay for these drinks. Absolutely horrific experience, 0/10 and I should hope the manager is fired. This was on Saturday 20th September at around 10:45-11pm.”
Hope someone is fired because a customer drank a lot of drinks that they hadn’t paid for? Hmmmm.
“Great if you like to stand in a que. This venue has not adapted to present life after the lockdown but requires customers to que so that staff don’t have to question who’s next.”
This standing in a queue thing is becoming more common at pubs, but it’s hard to not join a queue if there already is one. This is why I use the app to avoid these confusing situations….
“Always so very pleased with the service and beer. Breakfast is a delightful treat, but the extended range off eggs Benedict options has disappeared. I loved those with smoked salmon or black pudding. Please reinstate them. Staff are polite and helpful; toilets are immaculate. However, today my regular Brewdog Punk IPA was out of stock and staff unable or unwilling to tell me when it will be back on. I left earlier than usual. Not happy.”
Always so very pleased with the service and beer, but gives one star….
“I came into the restaurant to use the toilet and when I came out I took a seat for a few minutes and began eating a snack I had with me, I was planning to get a drink but was approached by 2 staff members, one told me I had to leave because I was eating my snack, not even offering me a menu or asked if I would like to order anything, the other female staff member under her breath said I’ll confiscate your food if you don’t leave. As a result of this awful customer service and lack of professionalism I won’t ever be returning to this restaurant. Staff need to consider their behaviour.”
So a customer didn’t order a drink and sat down at a table to eat food from somewhere else. And then seems confused when this is questioned?
“Here on the 9/8/21 19.00pm for my lads 19th bithday meal .totally ruin by the staff who ask for ID. Unable able to give paper ID. But got proof on phone of driving licence. Still not good enough. Totally ruined birthday atmosphere. So left after main meal. Didn’t bother with pudding.Gutted. His dad. Not visiting again .”
In short, customer asks venue to break their licensing rules, the staff refuse and the venue gets one star.
“It’s what you expect to be honest. Reason for 1 star is you cant add comments for food.on the app or add any allergen information. We decided.to eat elsewhere due to not having any confidence with their allergens with only a big screen thing to check.”
The big screen has all the allergen information so customers know what they can order, but the customer hoped they could type their allergen requirements in as a note to the kitchen and thought that would be a better way?
“Under 18s after 9 pm on a Sunday evening not allowed. Even though we are eating…..hmmmmm loads of other people under the age of 18 in there hmm it is their local license policy to keep their license with the council apparently……. Although the law states it is not the case.”
The law very much states that venues to have to meet local licensing law….
“Visited with my 18 year old son after we both finished work at 8pm, had a meal each and he had a cider, ordered on the APP and when it arrived the girl politely asked if he had ID , which he didnt, but he was obviously well over 16, then I asked the manager Nash or Tash, why he couldnt be drinking Cider as it was allowed by LAW, she then told me that it was a pub and NOT a restaurant. I went on the Gov.uk website out of interest more than anything else, and found that by law he was allowed to drink if he is over 16, if he had a meal with an adult from over 18. She then got the 2 doormen (these 2 were very professional unlike their manager) to throw us out. When I left I asked her name which she refused to give me as I want to esculate it. Are Wetherspoons above the law, Im not sure. She told me they have different rules, but surely they must stick to licensing laws and not make tgem up as they go along. I will contact their head office next week to get clarification on their licence laws being as they are different to the Government ones.”
And a customer who when told JD Wetherspoon doesn’t allow under 18s to drink alcohol in their venues, he declares that they must be acting above the law and leaves them one star. I think the Inbetweeners have a lot to answer here for when Will states the law….
Anyway, I digress once again. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but the reviews are broadly positive. As I can check the real ales online, I can see that today they’ve got seven real ales on, including some options from Oakham and Elgoods. I should also add that it’s in the Good Beer Guide, but I won’t add it to my list of places visited as I didn’t have been there….
