I told my dad I could be in Northampton, or more accurately, somewhere near-ish to Northampton at 11 in the morning on Saturday. I agreed to this when I was in a slight merry mood on Friday night. When I got up at 8 on Saturday feeling a little delicate, I discovered that none of the trains I wanted to take were running. Not even the one from my house to North of the river. Queue- ‘what has this country COME to?!’ sort of muttering as though I’ve morphed into my grannie…. I know, I know, when else would they do the engineering that wouldn’t interrupt commuters and the economy and so on…
So, I try to beat the system by rushing to Victoria Coach station, but alas coaches to Northampton only go every 3 hours or so, and I’ve just missed one. I try to get on the tube at Victoria to go to Euston but have a claustrophobia/ I’m in such a hurry semi panick attack and have to get off and get a taxi. Harrumph- feel rubbish and poorer just because I can’t conquer my fear of small dark tunnels.
Get to Euston £11.80, get the train as far as Bletchly £18 return (that’s where they broke the world war two code enigma whatsit- as the town’s sign proudly announces- ‘the home of code breaking’- I wonder if it’s a fair claim and they’re still at the top of their game in the code breaking world…) then get a coach to Northampton through the too beautiful Milton Keynes. Arrive at Northampton; get ANOTHER taxi (£17.40) to Stoke Bruerne. Which is on the canal and finally I’ve made it to my Dad and his wife and the canal boat. This is mode of transport No. 4 of the day.
And I have to say it takes a while for my whirlitzing limbs and brain to get used to travelling at 4 miles an hour, kind of back down the country to where I’ve rushed from but at a much slower pace. Then we got stuck in a canal boat traffic jam, as some holidaying family’s dog has gone over board and they have to drain the lock of water and try and rescue them. Ah, would you believe even the slowest form of transport in the country has got its bank holiday breakdown…
Tell me your bank holiday stories… did you get caught up in the carnival and trampled on? Did you try to go camping and get flooded? You know, happy stories welcome as well.
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One Response to “Bank holiday rail replacement woe”
Posted: Aug 26th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I have a crap train travel story as well, but not half as diverse and mental as yours though, Harry! It involved sitting on my bag for 90 minutes next to the toilet on a train sooo rammed and stinky it could have passed for a cattle truck. (I suppose £60 is a smaller sum to pay for the journey than your life, as cattle do, but still.) It was also full of young chaps who thought it would help everyone’s state of mind if they shouted about their genitals really loudly. I’m not too good at staying quiet when people are being rude and obnoxious so I have to admit, I did join in by shouting something equally unpleasant back at them which, suprisingly, seemed to shut them up. Fire with fire? Never thought it possible.