Blog: Heading Home

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As I type this blog I'm sat back at my desk as if nothing has happened, like Mr Benn finding himself back at his house on Festive Road, with only a huge pile of dirty laundry to remind me that it really did.

Our last day began with rising at 9am which, after a fortnight in Edinburgh, felt like when you used to have to get up at 4am to "beat the traffic" on a family holiday. We packed, hoovered and generally TIDIED, and were surprised to meet an Eastern European Man (who i believe may have been boozing even later than US the night before) who'd come to collect our sheets and towels. I hope he was from the rental agency!

We said our farewells to the flat and rolled downhill to the station, with everything going FINE. Our route was perfect, Steve dropped the keys off, we got nice seats, had tea and sandwiches on the train, saw The Angel Of The North, and all was DELIGHTFUL (apart from Steve doing SADFACE when we passed an Actual Circus that he wanted to run away and join instead of going back to work) until we reached York, where the train stopped. It stayed stopped for AGES, and then we got an announcement that someone had fallen in front of a train at Potter's Bar, so there would be delays. This is always SAD, obviously, and I know there's nothing the rail companies can do about it, so we just settled into our seats to wait.

After AGES another announcement came on, telling us our train was CANCELLED. ARGH! About an ACTUAL THOUSAND people thus got turfed off and crossed the platform to wait for the next train, it was INCREDIBLY ANNOYING. We'd all got seats, had settled in, and now we were being DUMPED onto a whole other train which would undoubtedly be JUST as busy for a HORRIBLE journey home. There totally bloody IS something East Coast could have done about this i.e. NOT cancel the train for THEIR convenience, but leave it running for OURS.

My ANNOYANCE was added to when they announced that our next train was arriving... but on a totally different platform, so the Actual Thousand of us ALL had to dash all the way along the platform to stampede over a bridge. At this point I looked at my Network Rail App which told me ANOTHER train to London would be arriving five minutes after this one, being TRANE NINJAS me and Steve went for THAT instead. This was an EXCELLENT plan - we got proper SEATS and, though we had to wait for about another 40 minutes on the platform before leaving, so did the train we'd been TOLD to get onto. It must have been HORRID for the people in that one... but it was jolly pleasant for us, and the rest of the trip ZOOMED by. I will, however, still be claiming a refund!

Back in London, The Column In My Trafalgar Square had come to meet us, so there was much HOORAYING and HUGS before Steve headed off to The Lexington and we popped into The Parcel Yard for a cheeky/celebratory beer.

That evening we had CHAMPAGNE and a proper tea containing ACTUAL VEGETABLES and watched TELLY. Everything was gently slipping back to normality - in the words of Mr F Sinatra (via Messrs S Cahn and J Van Heusen), it's very nice to go travelling but it's oh so much nicer to come home!

posted 22/8/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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