Taunton by Train

£7.50 from Exeter St Davids station for a cheap day return to Taunton. It is very inexpensive. It used to be a lot more but, apparantly, they put the prices down a few weeks ago on the Cheap Day Returns, which makes it ideal for a little break from my local station, just a 10 minute walk down the road.

I catch the 14.30 to arrive in Taunton (via Tiverton Parkway) at about 14.58. It is a nondescript railway station at Taunton, certainly not Brunel's finest work. (Just wait until you see the dreadful, Sevenoakesque, Plymouth). After disembarking the Virgin Voyager, you gown downstairs, underneath the platforms and railway lines, to exit the station, always the worst kind of greeting to a new place.

I stop and ask a woman directions, inexplicably disoriented by my location in Taunton - I've only ever seen the other end of town, the posh end. I cross the River Tone, pass the County Ground (where Botham, Garner, Viv Richards etc. must've been amazing in the late 1970s). First stop, the Coal Porter, a Wetherspoons pub, for one of their cheap, #3.99 cheeseburger and chips and pint meal.

Later, I find a superb Betfred bookmakers