Before leaving, I'd seen that British Rail do "Advance Bookings" that make rail travel really affordable. (They also do cheap fares for the disabled and the person accompanying them, but those are only seem to be available to British residents. ) So.... we hired a car and went to Brighton (INSERT slideshow), The New Forest, Bath (INSERT slideshow), and Bristol, thus popping in on most of our friends and having a couple of nights independently in hotels. The plan was to leave the car in Bristol and then get a train back to London in time for a fancy dress party.
From Brighton onwards, I tried to book 'advance' tickets on the internet - an extremely frustrating experience!! At first I tried from a friend's computer and ended up feeling VERY rude since it took for ever but got nowhere and every time I looked the fare had risen. Then at Lyndhurst in the New Forest, I wandered as directed over into the library which was tiny but had a couple of computers where I was allowed to fail to book an advance seat yet again. (I'm not sure if this is the local library but it looked like this.
Eventually, on the road to Bath, I used my new mobile and phoned:
08457484950
It worked!!! Somebody answered before TOO long! I really recommend using the telephone when trying to book seats on British Rail!
Also recommend (from a broad database of two occasions) using the libraries to access the internet as the librarians were VERY friendly and helpful. The internet cafes can be quite hard to find now that so many people have laptops or internet access from home.
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