Impromptu four-day tour: Abrupt return

I am not in Córdoba.

There were such high hopes for my last two days of Interrail, with all the trains lined up for a magnificent journey from Leominster to Córdoba for a long weekend, and then on to Seville for a week of warmth and co-working spaces. Tangier had even crossed my mind.

The plan had been to leave on Thursday morning to arrive in Paris in the evening with sufficient time for dinner, before boarding a night train from Austerlitz, whence I should be whisked through the night to Toulouse. There, after coffee and a shower, I'd take an Intercités service to Narbonne, an onward train to Madrid, and then – oh, how exciting – an Iryo to Córdoba where I'd stay for three nights before making my way to Seville for a week. In Seville I'd planned to stay in a hostel with pods and rent a desk in a co-working space to be able to work, before having a wonderful mammoth trek to Donostia on the Friday, where a couple of nights would wrap up another "How far can you get" attempt.

It is probably becoming clear that things did not go as expected.

Thursday morning, then. Let us imagine a glorious, sunny, autumnal north Herefordshire morning where, after a quick trip to the Co-op to stock up on own-brand Ibuprofen and a newspaper, the 10:13 Transport for Wales service slid gracefully into Leominster's Victorian red brick station. Once much grander and described as the grand junction of the Marches, it is now but a Beechinged-down version of its former self.

I found myself a lovely big leathery seat in first class, waved like a child at Parent, and contemplated breakfast. Last time I did a morning journey on one of these it was via Newport on a journey that afforded plenty of time for breakfast, but this time my journey to Crewe was a little shorter, so I limited myself to the tasty non-meaty sausage sandwich. This was served to my seat and came with hash browns and a bowl of sauces of various colours – all washed down with a big cup of tea-or-coffee.

Outside the window, wonderful golden orange hues of autumn slid past the window, and I settled down to watch as we soldiered north through sun-drenched fields and past the Shropshire hills. Occasionally, our driver would toot at a parent clutching a precariously-positioned waving child on a bridge, or people waiting at a level crossing, while the sheeps and the moo-cows seemed resolutely unimpressed by our passage and continued to graze, unconcerned.

Before long Crewe hoved into view, and this time I got to see My Lovely Horse as we snaked past it onto the platform. The onward service to Euston was announced as being a few minutes late, so I used the time for a quick rummage through the first class lounge and, after a coffee, liberated a muffin and a can of spiced tomato juice for my evening adventure. On my way out, I grabbed a copy of the service sheet for Monday's Service of Remembrance and looked at the brass memorial plaque to the people of the London and North Western Railway and Crewe North and South Steam Sheds who gave their lives. The names on this memorial are passed by many people each day. Had it not been for the adorning poppies, I probably would not have stopped and looked.

On board the 11:55, the lovely lady suggested it was never too early for a breakfast gin and tonic, which I dutifully consumed with my "BBQ Bean Hash" – potato, mushrooms, onion, beans and tomato in a tangy sauce, served with toasted malted bread and a poached egg. Occasionally noisy co-travellers were easily talked into putting their phones into silent. When the lovely lady came round a second time, I had a double vodka and tonic, because I am a glamorous seasoned traveller. I sat back in my big comfy seat and, unaware of my fate, dreamt of exotic onward travel and visiting the Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba.

This was not to be.

On arrival in London, I checked my phone and saw to my horror that the 15:31 Eurostar to Paris had been cancelled. Really, what I should have done at this point was seek immediate refuge in the lounge in Euston, stock up on snacks, cancel everything, stock up on more snacks, and go back to Leominster. I've been longing to try the Transport for Wales full-on onboard dining experience for a while, and reckon I could've got up to Manchester to leave with time to order at least two courses, before rolling off the train and onto the platform I'd left only hours previously. Instead, because I foolishly clung to a glimmer of hope, I walked to Saint Pancras to see what was going on.

Chaos. Chaos is what was going on. An unfortunate someone had been hit by a train on the high-speed line, and so all traffic had been suspended while the local gendarmerie presumably tried to scrape up all the bits. This meant that my train, and the train after it, had been cancelled, having a knock-on effect resulting in every other train for the rest of the day now being full. Even to Lille. I really should've used my pass to go back to my starting point to try again another day, but instead took advantage of the option to book a hotel to a value of up to £150, and change to a train the next morning.

I booked the nearest, cheapest, hotel with a plan to install myself and make alternative onward arrangements from Paris in vain, as it's impossible to get to Córdoba on one travel day from London. I thought about going to Marseille instead, or San Sebastián, or anywhere that might be warm, before having to resign myself to the reality that it was probably better to abandon onward travel plans, and go home. I tossed a coin and called heads for San Sebastián twice. It was heads. Twice.

My dejected scrolling through travel and accommodation alternatives continued until my stomach determined I should just give up and accept that I was the only thing not going south this weekend. I acquiesced and sloped downstairs, where I found the bar quite lively. To my surprise Central Station – a name which conjures the glamour of the railways – is a gay pub spread over three floors in the King's Cross area of London, with a hotel tacked onto it. Had it been listed by its previous name, The Prince Albert, I might've guessed. Suddenly the velour curtains, stain-resistant sheets, and hardy ladies loitering around the entrance made perfect sense. One article I read about it contains the joyous sentence: "they did his trousers up before the ambulance arrived." The fetish club in the basement did not appear to be open.

Still. As was befitting a day including a lovely horse, it turned out to be Eurovision quiz-cum-singalong night and I was powerless to resist. I procured myself a drink and sat at a table with a lovely Irish-American woman called Sinéad, who had made it into London late on the last running Eurostar. She was keen to share her chips with me, and over chips found my predicament most amusing. Eventually, after much camp and a succession of full-on bouncy Eurovision bangers, an over-enthusiastically clappy person called Stefan won the quiz, the rules and execution of which I struggled hard to understand as a lot of the scoring was conducted in Swedish, Slovak, and nearly-French.

I retired to bed, the muffled bass of Nemo pumping up the stairs. Douze points.

My train this morning was the 7:31 service to Paris. This is an offensive time of day that is agreeable only to abnormal people, but as I was literally a five-minute sashay from the station, getting there for 6:16 as indicated on my ticket was not really a challenge. In fact, I had excess time to wander through King's Cross and visit platform 9¾ before the heavily-branded tat emporium next to it opened, and ever greater crowds of over-excited grown-ups in round glasses and purple scarves filled the concourse.

Over the road the Eurostar terminal was busy, but moving fast enough so as not to make it insufferable. There were no newspapers, but I did get an espresso and a judgemental look at a croissant – three of your whole piss-taking pounds – before we eventually boarded and the nice lady brought the breakfast trolley. I had the savoury option – a butternut and feta pastry, which came with a glass of orange juice and a bottomless coffee – and remembered my Crewe lounge haul from yesterday, which contained, among other things, a blueberry muffin. This went very nicely with yet another cup of coffee.

Also in my backpack, liberated from various stages along yesterday's route of doom, were a can of spiced tomato juice and a solitary baby bottle of vodka, originally intended to add a touch of class to my night train experience in the form of a nightcap to consume in the upper bunk I'd managed to snag. On the tray in front of me lay a proper glass and a spoon with which to mix. It's in situations like this I think it's good to pause for a moment, take stock, and ask oneself: "What would Patsy do?"

The next time the man went past asking if anyone else wanted coffee, I asked if he had ice. He did, and it arrived at my seat quickly, delivered by a woman who looked mildly confused. As we burst forth out of the tunnel and flung ourselves headlong into France, I'd just had my first mouthful of a breakfast Bloody Mary – so nice I can't understand why I don't do it more often. The woman walked past again and looked a little judgemental. Or jealous. I didn't care. But that's probably why I don't do it more often.

At the Gare du Nord, and only slightly regretting vodka on a mostly empty stomach, things went very smoothly and I barely paid any attention to anything until miraculously I arrived at the Gare d'Austerlitz. I immediately got lost, because – and this is my defence, your honour – they've moved things during the interminable renovation works. I found a bar on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital in which to buy a sandwich where I felt compelled to consumed a pre-train libation while waiting for it to be prepared. Around twelve o'clock, as I was getting ready to leave to take my train to Limoges, various workmen from the construction site that is the station came in and settled themselves at the bar for a similar lunch.

The 12:28 Intercités to Cahors left on time from platform 11. When I booked my ticket last night, I was in a club six – the absolute worst kind of club, one short of the kind of party there ain't no party like – but today seat 54 was not a window seat facing the direction of travel in an open compartment of six, but a not-window seat of two, not pointing in the direction of travel. The modernised carriages had been substituted with the older kind, the ones I like with the big comfy red velour armchairs in which one should really be consuming cocktails.

Seat 56, the window seat, was occupied by an older English gentlemen who was travelling with his spouse – afflicted of the North American persuasion – who, rather than swap with me so they could sit together, was sitting across the aisle in a place isolée. She insisted on occasionally moving to talk or pass things over me which was as rude as it was frustrating, but she needed – I was told – to sit "facing the engine". I thought she sounded like high maintenance and that he was better off not sitting next to her for the whole three and a half hours. I'd probably have had to stab her with an SNCF swizzle stick.

Nothing of merit occurred during the journey. The weather outside was dreadful, the windows were dirty, and after such an early start I struggled not to fall in and out of little snoozes. When the man came with coffee, I had some with a maple and fudge shortbread I found I'd liberated yesterday. I was immediately ready for another snooze. Somewhere around Argenton-sur-Creuse I moved to an unoccupied solo seat in the direction of travel. The windows on that side of the train were dirty as well.

In Limoges, it was raining heavily. There was nothing to do but wait for the next train. Not to Madrid, not to Córdoba, not to Seville, but a chuggity diesel TER to Périgueux. To that end, I poked around the station concourse where, after my early-morning Potter exposure, a youth was slowly bringing things full circle by getting to grips with Hedwig's Theme on the open-access piano, while his friends looked on in unfettered admiration.

We left on time, but were held in Nexon for fifteen minutes to give way to the train coming in the opposite direction along the single track section. In Thiviers, instead of alighting insouciantly into the Andalusian sun like a louche twentieth-century bon viveur, I stepped into a puddle almost immediately and pulled my hood up for the trudge to the car park. A friend was waiting dutifully to whisk me to the pub.

Not the glamorous ending I’d planned, but after twelve hours and a breakfast Bloody Mary, I felt quite glad to be home.