Meltdown

The trains went into meltdown this afternoon. I was trying to get to Godalming for dinner. I dont know if you've ever seen the departure boards at London Waterloo, but the trains work their way from screen to screen as the train time gets closer and closer. Except that this afternoon every time they got to the last screen (ie about to leave) they kept getting cancelled! So for 2 hours all the Guildford trains were cancelled, by which time there was a HUGE number of furious and sweating people packed into Waterloo getting angrier and angrier. When they finally gave us a train it filled up instantly, so most people remained stranded.

Still, when I finally got into a (packed) train, I had a very interesting chat with a plumber who gets the train to work in London because its cheaper and (usually) less delayed than driving his van. He exploded the myth that Plumbers in London make loads of money, and talked about how hard the work is. Infact its quite like being a barrister in that whilst you are self employed, you cant turn down work easily so you dont really control the hours.

The second leg of my journey was also a bit crazy. An elderly lady who spoke constantly and in an incomprehensible manner took it upon herself to engage me in conversation. Aware that the rest of the (standing) carriage was listening, I did my very best to appear interested by repeating the odd word she mentioned. I never grasped what she was talking about, but it sounded interesting. The only words I picked up were 'Romans' 'Hadrian's Wall' 'Toilets' 'Central Heating' and '1666'.

What can you do!
Anna Wilks provided an excellent dinner.