Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well it's about 7.15am on Christmas Eve. I've been up about 40 minutes and will be wandering down for some breakfast shortly. Then I will be getting an early tube down to Euston and a comparatively early train to Shropshire.

These things are relative; on a work day it would not be early for most people, but today I think it is. And all the last minute rushing around will take place once the main shops are open. Provided I'm on a train and gone by then, all should be well.

So; time to dress and find food I think. And make sure Furtle's phone is near the bed so I can phone her about 9 to make sure she doesn't forget to wake up and go to Euston.

More later, perhaps, from my niece's computer in Shropshire. If not, Merry Christmas and God Bless us, one and all.

So anyway, Saturday was the day I chose to wander back off to the homestead in Sunny Shropshire to check on the aged P. Normally I'd go on Friday, but getting the time off was awkward and anyway, Saturdays are cheaper for traveling.

That said, weekends are the time that anyone involved with public transport in the UK takes the piss out of their clientele. This weekend they did it to the extent that the 150-odd miles took 61/2 hours door-to-door, Whetstone to Wem.

The Tube started it off. The Northern Line was suspended between East Finchley and oh, I don't know. Suffice it to say that I tubed from Whetstone to East Finchley and then found my self on the rail replacement bus service. That at least took me to Euston, but it did so in a skittish and disorderly fashion, taking an additional 40 minutes or so to get me there. I arrived at Euston at 1.20pm. The train departure turned out to be precisely 1.20pm. So, a wait of one hour, then. Plenty of time to buy a ticket, except that there was a power failure. So no ticket. Buy that on the train then.

Meantime, outside it started raining, but only that gentle stuff that racks up the humidity without really breaking the heat. Tra-la. One hour and a burger later, I am on the Virgin Trains service to Wolverhampton. Today, ladies and gentlemen, the service is stopping everywhere we can think of, AND traveling via Nuneaton. Oh, that'll be unexpected maintenance outside Birmingham then, will it?

Wonderful. That's a two hour trip turned three hours, then. Still, at least the Virgin Pandemonium Pandolino was reasonably empty so I could stretch out. Oh, yes. Air conditioned too, thank the gods. It rained quite heavily all the way north. And me without a coat on account of the previously stifling and all-pervasive heat. Tra-la.

Arrival, eventually, at Wolverhampton, with just enough time to be appalled by the station food and drink prices, but not enough time to be gouged by them, and it's on to the local dodger to Shrewsbury, the one that stops at every cattle-grid going west and occasionally backs up to make sure that the comfort levels don't top out. Still, at least we're moving.

Until Wellington, that is, when we unaccountably stop. The rain has stopped too, but it appears from collaring a functionary that there have been flash floods and that the track is both flooded along the line, and the water has shorted the points. There is much sage nodding from other functionaries, which is rather spoiled by the arrival from Shrewsbury - the direction we're headed - of a completely dry train.

Disgruntled driver, seeing his excuse blown out of the water, packs up sandwiches and gets back in the cab. We're off! Hurrah! More to the point, it becomes clear as we approach the supposedly flooded railway bridge, that it hasn't rained in that part of Shropshire since the early Devonian epoch. The driver, safely ensconced in the cab, refuses to be bantered by this and we continue heading west where I arrive to find my sister at the station ahead of me for the first time in recorded history.

And so on to Wem, where the temperatures are reassuringly stultifying and family members are either wilting in armchairs or bludgeoning the life out of each other on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Marvellous.

Still, on the journey home yesterday, I got back to Euston a full 15 minutes earlier than I expected to, and the driver apologised to everyone for only averaging 110mph on account of speed restrictions owing to the heat.

And it seems that I may have been over-optimistic about Dad, too, but I'll cover that at some other point.

Or not.

Chores to do now, which was the entire point of the additional day off.