Travelling Home
I am in the odd position of blogging this morning from my laptop on a train in St Pancras International. It’s only a matter of time before Mrs Mary Honeyball and Harriet Harman have it renamed to St Pankhurst, I suppose; what’s an orphaned saint to them?
Anyway, I was feeling bad for missing my mother’s birthday, and for a moment had believed my own propaganda about being unable to get to Corby at short notice for less than eighty pounds, which is a lot of money. However, my sister, god bless her, changed my mind for me—she’s a very forceful woman—and I resolved to try and get the price down and to see my mum, who was not much of a mood to celebrate to anything.
So, I thought, Meenagh, you’re going to use that none-too-lucrative brain at the minute and smile a bit as well. I got a restricted super off-peak return to Kettering for thirty eight pounds; then I got a coffee and talked with courtesy and a bit of a smile to the harassed fellow behind the desk at the station, and he upgraded my ticket (perfectly legally) for the huge cost of sixty pence. Then I had a chat with the guard, who told me all about how to avoid the industrial action tomorrow, and, well, Bob is my uncle. That, incidentally, is one of the very few positive references to Sir Robert Peel that you will ever read on this blog.
Courtesy works. I have saved around fifty pounds, and have bought the privilege of listening to the tales of sexual misadventure at wine-tastings where they did not spit of the two women next to me. Its odd, the things that remind you of Reggie Maudling. I love life, and this train is not only surrounded by verdant rolling green examples of Spring but is full of the energy of the people around me, which I find fun.
The train is also comfortable and, at this time of the day, top-rate, but different from those I enjoy coming back from Bath. When the train companies collapse and we have to renationalize them—and I know that, this being England, it won’t work like this—I hope that we retain regional identities and different lines. The big cost should go into the software to change the ticketing to a distance-based one, but that’s for another post
I am in the odd position of blogging this morning from my laptop on a train in St Pancras International. It’s only a matter of time before Mrs Mary Honeyball and Harriet Harman have it renamed to St Pankhurst, I suppose; what’s an orphaned saint to them?
Anyway, I was feeling bad for missing my mother’s birthday, and for a moment had believed my own propaganda about being unable to get to Corby at short notice for less than eighty pounds, which is a lot of money. However, my sister, god bless her, changed my mind for me—she’s a very forceful woman—and I resolved to try and get the price down and to see my mum, who was not much of a mood to celebrate to anything.
So, I thought, Meenagh, you’re going to use that none-too-lucrative brain at the minute and smile a bit as well. I got a restricted super off-peak return to Kettering for thirty eight pounds; then I got a coffee and talked with courtesy and a bit of a smile to the harassed fellow behind the desk at the station, and he upgraded my ticket (perfectly legally) for the huge cost of sixty pence. Then I had a chat with the guard, who told me all about how to avoid the industrial action tomorrow, and, well, Bob is my uncle. That, incidentally, is one of the very few positive references to Sir Robert Peel that you will ever read on this blog.
Courtesy works. I have saved around fifty pounds, and have bought the privilege of listening to the tales of sexual misadventure at wine-tastings where they did not spit of the two women next to me. Its odd, the things that remind you of Reggie Maudling. I love life, and this train is not only surrounded by verdant rolling green examples of Spring but is full of the energy of the people around me, which I find fun.
The train is also comfortable and, at this time of the day, top-rate, but different from those I enjoy coming back from Bath. When the train companies collapse and we have to renationalize them—and I know that, this being England, it won’t work like this—I hope that we retain regional identities and different lines. The big cost should go into the software to change the ticketing to a distance-based one, but that’s for another post
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