Stop right there. There I am using that phrase again as there are plenty of things worse than what I'm going to relate. But here goes.
There's nothing worse than planning a nice lay in after a very hectic day only to find yourself awake around 6 am as normal.
Somehow it makes me feel cheated. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to tell you about our day in Coventry and I fear I will be going on at some length, so you might want to abandon ship at this point.
If you are still with me, well here goes.
Woke up in Milton Keynes to find a bright and warm day. After a hearty breakfast we were driven to MK Central Station to catch the 9.52 fast train to Coventry. MK is a sensible place. It has the rail and bus stations next to each other. Other places seem to have them miles apart.
The railways were playing up yet again (Rishi can you hear me?) The 9.52 arrived at 9.52 but was rammed. Apparently something or other had happened at Watford. In addition instead of going all the way to Glasgow, this train was now terminating at Preston.
We had to stand all the way. Thankfully that was just 33 minutes or as Mozart might say 33 minuets. We had reserves seats but couldn't even get through to our carriage and wouldn't have been able to claim the seats anyway. So what exactly is the point of that?
A lady who looked to be in her 40s tried to give up her seat to the other threequarters and we nearly had another row similar to that I have mentioned before.
"Do take my seat."
"No thank you."
"I insist. Come on sit down. I'm getting off at the next stop."
"So am I."
When we got out the other threequarters did thank the lady and pointed out very loudly for the whole carriage to hear that it was a pity that some of the young people in the carriage hadn't offered their seats. Being an ex teacher, she notices these things.
"We were on a train a few weeks ago with two teachers and a load of schoolchildren. The teachers got up to let some elderly people sit down, but the kids didn't. These are the things we no longer seem to be teaching in schools - how to be considerate towards others," she said to anyone willing to listen.
So there we were in Coventry. The other threequarters, who is much better at this sort of thing than I am, strode into the tourist information kiosk and struck up a conversation with the volunteer there who just happened to come from Yorkshire and a week ago was visiting a tiny village just three miles from where the other threequarters comes from.
I felt at that point that we might be there all day and miss the football match which was one of two reasons for being there - history being the other.
Usually within a couple of minutes of meeting someone the other threequarters mentions she is from Yorkshire and then within another couple of minutes adds that she now lives in Norwich.
"We're here for the football," she said.
"Oh you're a Canary," replied the kiosk lady.
Last time I looked I had a shortage of wings and feathers, but I knew what she meant.
Coventry struck me as a bit of a strange place. The rebuilt modern areas and shopping precincts I didn't like at all, but the historic areas I really did like. We were on something of a whistle stop tour and it really did feel as if the place had two distinct characters. I often find it difficult coming to terms with the ancient and modern side by side.
We were in awe of the shell of the old cathedral which had its innards bombed out in the war. We didn't have time to look round the new cathedral as they had a craft fair and were charging for entry and I simply will not pay to enter things like craft fairs where the whole idea is to sell things to you.
By this time we were in desperate need of coffee and a light bite but could we find an independent coffee shop- no we could not. Norwich has tons of them and we always like to give them our patronage rather than the big chains.
So we settled on the museum cafe which was pleasant enough. Dippy the Dinosaur has found a home there. I remember when this large creature was in Norwich Cathedral it attracted long queues. I was pretty underwhelmed by it then and am pretty underwhelmed by it now.
I was more interested in George Elliot's piano. Wasn't allowed to play it but just stood and admired. George Elliot or Mary Ann Evans to give him/her their rightful name is pretty popular in Coventry and Holy Trinity Church had a plaque stating that the author worshipped there regularly and her father was a sidesman.
He/She wrote one of my favourite novels which apparently was originally called March 15th before it was retitled Middlemarch (and yes I did make that fact up).
Anyway when it comes to gender neutrality good old Mary Ann/George along with the Brontë sisters/brothers obviously knew a thing or two about switching genders and they thought they were doing it to sell more books.
Which takes me onto the loos in the museum. They were labelled "gender non specific" which was excellent as I went in as a cat and came out as a dog!
We visited a small but beautifully formed museum about the Coventry blitz and Hitler's attempts to destroy the entire city and everyone living there - something in which he failed. Coventry has much in common with Norwich which suffered huge damage in the war. The main difference is that Coventry Cathedral suffered destruction whilst Norwich Cathedral wasn't hit. It never ceases to amaze me how Norwich's main landmarks, the Cathedral and the Castle, both escaped. Were the Germans just bad shots, how could they miss the big building rising over 300 feet into the air?
The museum brought home the enormity of what happened in Coventry which was very similar to what took place from the allied bombing of Dresden. I've never been to Dresden but it's on my bucketlist of places to visit along with Auschwitz. I believe that a close bond now exists between Coventry and Dresden thanks to their shared experiences.
It was my kind of museum: "This is a see and touch museum. Feel free to pick anything up and take as many photographs as you like," we were told.
Perhaps all too soon it was time to get to the football ground. It used to be called The Ricoh Arena but is now the Coventry Building Society Arena and it's a distance from the city centre.
We had train tickets for a seven minute journey from the rail station but decided to take a bus instead as the stop was nearer than walking all the way back to the rail station.
The service 20 was the right one - we knew this as a number of people wearing Coventry football shirts got on the bus.
All we had to do was get off when they got off and follow them. So that's what we did.
It was a long old drive through some rather depressed neighbourhoods. Norwich's ground is just a 10 minute walk from the city centre. Coventry's ground was a good half hour bus journey.
The ground itself was next to a massive shopping complex. I bet it's fun at Christmas time when they have all the shoppers merging with the football supporters. The word gridlock comes to mind.
We were at the ground over an hour before kick off. There were a lot of coaches from North Norfolk in the extensive car parks. Getting in wasn't as easy as we might have thought. We all had rucksacks. Mine was small and red (and yes I am referring to the rucksack) whilst our fried Pete's was large and black (I'm still referring to the rucksacks).
We were approached by an official who started talking to us about Martyn's Law.
"Are you aware of Martyn's Law," he asked what must have been three bemused looking people who hadn't a clue what he was talking about.
Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, and that's somewhere you really don't want to go, the phrase Martyn' s Law rang a bell, but why had we been singled out for this question?
It all surrounded the size of friend Peter's bag. It wasn't its colour but it's size. It was too big to be allowed in. Back in Norwich they allow you in with elephants, grand pianos and virtually everything else, but obviously Martyn's Law only applies in Coventry.
So was Martyn's Law simply "Thou shalt not bring a large rucksack into the Coventry Building Society, formerly known as the Ricoh Arena?"
"It's all about the size of your bag," the man who sounded Scottish said.
"There's a maximum size for bags allowed in. Have you come by coach?"
"No," we replied.
"Car?"
"No," we replied. "We've come by train."
This seemed to confuse him. "Perhaps you could leave your bag on one of the coaches."
At this point he wandered off.
Now being pretty intelligent people with a doctorate, a Master's degree and one other degree and various teachin qualifications between us we decided on Plan B.
Plan A to leave the bag on one of the Norfolk coaches was pretty much a non starter as we envisaged returning to the car park afterwards with the coach home and friend Pete's belongings on their way to Cromer.
So we combined our brainpower. Friend Peter put on his jacket, put all the other belongings in his pockets, folded the offending bag up and put it into the legal sized bag being carried by the other threequarters. Once in the ground he reconstituted the black bag and its contents and had no further trouble.
This piece of theatrical nonsense was brought to you by Coventry City Football Club and a Scottish jobsworth who wanted to be clever.
The Scottish Jobsworth did vaguely explain what Martyn's Law is but I needed to look it up. And of course it is a result of the Manchester Arena bombing and gives organisers of arena and public events the right to take every conceivable step to safeguard the event. It doesn't stipulate the siz of bags and anyway all bags are generally searched before you go into football stadiums. This is usually a very cursory search and sometimes less than that. At Norwich we voluntarily open our bags which goes well with the security people in a kind of "These people are happy to be searched kind of way."
At Norwich there are no body searches, at Coventry there were, although these may have been reserved for away supporters.
"Careful where you put your hands lad. I've got a banana in my pocket."
Just after Friend Pete had secreted his illegal bag in the other threequarters' legal bag he pointed out that the Jobsworth had suggested leaving the bag and its contents on one of the Norfolk coaches. Had this bag carried a bomb it would have blown up the bus somewhere on the A11.
As for the match. Well this blog is going to be very long without a lengthy diatribe about the game. Suffice it to say it's a nice, modern, rather sterile football stadium and we had a good view behind one of the goals. The match was poor, neither side deserved to win which is slightly different to saying neither team deserved to lose which infers a good game. So in this case a 1-1 draw just about reflected the poor play.
And so to the journey back to MK. It didn't go to plan.
We missed the first train back to Coventry Central due to being sent in the opposite direction which was a pointless exercise. It was obviously done to stop the Norwich fans walking through the Coventry. But once we had done the circular route in the wrong direction we were able to do just that. As far as we could see there was absolutely no trouble between the fans. There was some trouble as I will explain but Norwich fans weren't involved.
Now wouldn't you think that on match days they would increase the frequency of trains to coincide with the pre and post match rushes or at least vary the timetable. Trains to and from Coventry Arena run only once an hour. The one going back to Coventry departs before the end of the game which means a wait of almost another hour when crowds build up. So we decided that the bus was the way to go. We walked through the shopping Mall and back to where we got off and there was a bus ready to go back to Coventry.
We got on and off we set, back to the next stop which just happened to be outside the arena we had just left. Then it was a slow crawl through traffic, taking longer than it would had we waited for the next train.
But there was another problem. We were downstairs and upstairs there was a scuffle and a lot of shouting which preceded a young boy crying and another screaming. They came downstairs and got off the bus which was then boarded by about six police officers which may have been a slight case of overkill. They led two men off the bus, obviously having arrested them.
There was a lovely moment for me when the biggest police officer saw one of the boys still crying and gave him a big hug.
Policing at the match was overkill. At Norwich there are very few Police on duty but there were far too many. Norwich fans by and large are peaceable and the number of police was unnecessary.
Eventually we did get back to the centre and walked to the rail station to get the train back to MK feeling quite exhausted.
So ended a very busy day and so ends a rather too long blog. Thank you if you've stuck with it this far. Tomorrow I will publish some of the photographs of our two days in MK which also included a pleasant walk through the village of Simpson where there are a number of thatched cottages and a rural, peaceful feel despite being so close to a large city. Incidentally there's a new roundabout in MK - just one of 500 or that's how many it seems.
Oh must finish by saying that today is my birthday. Tomorrow I'll look at some of the other people who share my birthday and try to work out if there is anything that makes us similar.
I will just leave you with three for the time being - John Lennon, David Cameron and Sharon Osborne. The last of these was born on the same day as myself.