So, for the first weekend in July, my weekend was free. I already had my Europe trip for the month planned and locked in; and potential plans for UK trips for the last weekend of this month falling to bits. For this weekend, I had nothing in mind planned or fixed in stone but doing something UK-based seemed wise. Sure, I had ideas - something which had been noted on the Calendar for a long time was a train trip on the Sunday, from London's Kings Cross Station to Edinburgh in Scotland, behind the A4 Class steam loco 60007 "Sir Nigel Gresley". The only A4 in the UK that I have yet to see, running its swansong trip on the main line before overhaul and doing so with a very rare chance to relive the A4's heydays when they ran between London and Edinburgh. A very rare, expensive chance - as nice as it would have been, after a while it was clear it was just too much, especially when I factored in that I had to be back at work on the Monday morning and the cost of making that happen. Plus, with some big travel happening in August, I need to be more wary of my funds. As it happens, in the event due to some issue the first half of this trip from Kings Cross to York was diesel hauled with 60007 taking over at York. Since the appeal of this trip for me was doing London to Edinburgh the entire way behind an A4, had I booked a place on the train I would not have been able to do what I wanted anyway. Because of the diesel hauled aspect, I couldn't even go see the engine off at Kings Cross. I'll get to see 60007 yet, probably even ride behind it, but not on the main line.
Something else came to my attention mid-week, and I'm not sure why I had missed it before then - the Talyllyn Railway's 150th Gala event in Southern Snowdonia, Wales. One of the famous "Little Trains of Wales" railways, of which I have not done any, this seemed like a good opportunity - especially with a loco line-up Saturday morning, a multi-header train using all the working steam locos they could muster, a few photographers trains and night trains. As a rule, Gala's seem to be the best time to visit railways, and here was a pretty good one. The problem? getting there. Too far for a day trip, quite costly to get there by train and back any which way you did it, and accommodation was an issue. Hiring a car was a possibility, and so evolved a plan to visit the Talyllyn on the Saturday, the Veil of Rheidol and the Brecon Mountain Railway on the Sunday. The catches - accommodation, again; and the overall cost was nudging the same amount as the above-mentioned train trip. Had I known about it earlier and been able to plan accordingly, it might have been a goer, and I will admit I came close to going through with it - but decided against it in the end, again deciding funds needed to be conserved.
Around this I was having a discussion with one of my London friends about places we had been, places we hadn't been and things we would like to do while in the UK or more specifically London and surrounding regions, and it transpired we both had lists. Her list was a more general list of places, events or things to do, but still quite extensive; mine was one I drew up in January, listing places that should be relatively easy and cheap to visit from London and what there was to do there. My list was a little bit out of date, but after I tidied my list up and compared it to hers, something stuck out. Two things, really - and they weren't things, they were places. So far, 7 months into being in the UK, I have yet to visit Oxford or Cambridge, the two University cities that most people on their OE seem to go to within the first 3 months of their arrival. I've been wanting to go - I just haven't gotten around to it, and if I hadn'tve been so poor at Easter, I might have done both then. Why not both this weekend? surely that will be cheaper? so I scoped it out. I could do a day bus tour with Evans Evans', the same people I went to Windsor, Bath and Stonehenge with - it would be a good trip with them, but it would be about £85 with a fixed itinerary and one thing I wanted to do in Cambridge was see the only working Acorn Phoebe computer at the Computing Museum there. I could catch trains to Oxford and Cambridge from London for far less and do my own thing, but there was no way of going between the two on public transport without coming back into London. Upon researching train tickets for Oxford, I saw for one particular train it wanted me to change trains at Didcot Parkway. Hmm, Didcot, that sounded familiar - isn't there a train group there? Yes, there is, and look at that, they have stuff running this weekend - including the rare Steam Railcar. So why not visit Didcot and Oxford then? Problem - the cost of going to Oxford was cheap, but to buy separate tickets factoring in a stop off at Didcot shot the price to over double of just going to Oxford. Reading on the website that access to the Didcot Museum was through the station and that if coming from the platforms you didn't have to exit out of barriers, I realised I could pay a couple of £ more over and above the cost of fixed-timed tickets for an "anytime" day return ticket to Oxford and make my way to Oxford at my leisure. It wouldn't matter the slightest if I just happened to take a few hours changing trains at Didcot, and spent those hours at the Museum as I'd never have to exit the barrier area - all for far cheaper than buying the individual tickets to include Didcot as a stop. No chance of visiting Cambridge in the same day - but I could do that on Sunday if I wanted.