I am seriously thinking of writing a book Dreadful Train Journeys I have undertaken or The Trials of a Commuter as I feel I ought to try and gain something out of my experiences, the latest of which last night was totally shattering and exhausting. Boring post, be warned so do go and make a cup of tea and come back later if you have no desire to hear of my travelling travails...
Arrived at Liverpool Street to see the concourse heaving with humanity, heart sank and found out that due to 'overhead power cable failure at Ingatestone' all train journeys out of Liverpool Street were suspended until further notice. So we sat there and we sat and we sat. Baking hot, always is extreme weather when this sort of thing happens, sweat trickling down faces and backs and slowly getting hungry and tired. resorted to buying a pasty from The Big Pasty Company and knew as soon as I ate it, that I would regret it. I could almost feel the E numbers attacking my insides as soon as it hit my tummy. Finally, at 9pm managed to get on a train to Shenfield where, we were assured, buses would be waiting for us so off we went. Seemed to be some doubt as to the destination of the train we had boarded with conflicting information coming over the PR system and I did wonder whether to go and find the driver and slip him some money and plead with him to take us to Shenfield, but in the end off we went and duly arrived at aforesaid destination. Hundreds of stranded commuters there and, guess what, no buses. We were promised that they were on their way and in half an hour two duly arrived taking just a small percentage of those passengers waiting. Obvious we would be there till midnight at this rate.
I glanced up the road and spotted a taxi coming towards me and it was empty! Left queue and flung myself across the bonnet so it screeched to a halt and said Take me to Colchester...and then, oh how much? The response was £60 so I asked him to wait a minute, took a deep breath, went into Lady Bracknell mode and throwing my voice as best I could, announced to the queuing hordes that I needed three companions to share a taxi with me to Colchester, £15 a a throw. Took all of 10 seconds before I had the three required and off we went.
We had a a very chatty driver who regaled us with his life story all the way home, letting slip such fascinating facts along the lines that he doesn't own a suit any more, he is getting fat (got actually) and decided to go to the gym but when he got there it was shut so he and his mate went and had a pint at the pub instead (I kid you not), he liked swimming but not in tiny swimming pools only in large ones and he spent two days last week tracking down a pair of flippers. By the time he got to the flipper episode and heard how many shops he had visited in his quest for same, I had lost the will to live and I could feel my eyes glazing over, but as I was in the front seat I had to smile, nod and look interested.
Ordeal came to an end and arrived at Colchester station and then I had to get my car and drive home. That
took me another half an hour as there were cars everywhere, up trees, up lamp posts, in the middle of the road, total chaos. When I finally got home I peeled off every garment I had on, dropped them on the floor (they are still there, I stepped over them this morning) and fell into bed.
Woke up, seemingly an hour later, to find it was time to get up and start all over again. Two hour journey in this morning as trains all over the place and am currently sitting at my desk fighting to keep awake and trying to concentrate as every document I have typed today has been appalling. I keep hitting the wrong computer keys and then looking at the screen and realising I have typed total gibberish.
So cannot wait to get home, and hope I do, and go to bed.
Oh and remember the Easy to Install bit in my earlier post about my modem? Yes it was easy to install, that was true enough, but I cannot get on line as the modem does not know who to dial and I have had to get in touch with the modem makers and they have sent me a list of instructions on what to do which looks complicated enough to launch a space probe from NASA.
It's all too much to bear....
