Coffee Shop etiquette

I’m not suggesting that we go the whole hog and put a maître d’ on the doorway, but perhaps there needs to be some signage in the coffee shops in Stratford that you actually buy something before you all sit down at a table.

I’d been queuing up to get a very late lunch (a Panini at nearly 5, could have been described as an early light dinner) and had noticed that there weren’t that many free tables left. However there were some.

In the time it took me to put in my coffee order and pay two large groups of tourists had walked in and plonked themselves down on most of the spare tables, without any of them bothering to actually come up and order anything.

It was pretty obvious to even the least observant person that the system here was queue up, pay up and collect your drink, there was no table service.

Thankfully a table did become free as I was walking away with my piping hot Panini (not something you want to be holding for a particularly long period of time looking for a table), but it was a good few minutes before a final member of their group walked in and one of them went over to order.

Of course, I haven’t ruled out the possibility that they were just being plain rude.

OK, so it is doable in a day

I’ve always been a bit concerned by some towns tourist activities.

The main one I’ve always thought was a bit dodgy was Stratford-upon-Avon’s attempts to make itself a day trip from London for tourists staying in the capital.

Hampton Court is only 20 odd miles from the city centre, Windsor around the 30 mile mark, these are not massive distances if you set off early and make a day of it. But Stratford is well over 120 miles from London, it’s the other side of the two hour mark on the train, how can you do that in a day.

However, I will now willingly renounce my incredulity on Stratford being a day trip.

I caught the train from London just after 10 this morning up to Leamington, walked over to my hotel, dropped all my stuff off, wandered back out and then caught the round the houses bus to Stratford and still managed to squeeze in most of the major sites by 5pm (and they were still open for another hour).

So, using the open top busses to hop from one site to the next (assuming you do the sites in the order the busses serve them) and getting into Stratford earlier than I did it would be possible to do the whole “Shakespeare Experience” and be back on a train to London the same day.

On that basis, maybe Edinburgh isn’t such a silly idea for a day trip...