Back to London (eventually)

I woke up this morning determined to get to London as early as possible to beat the rush and deal with whatever intercity travel could throw at me.

However, it was raining and there was left-over trifle and champagne to be had. Is it wrong to be washing down Christmas trifle with champagne at 10am? It would only have gone flat before I got back anyway and who wants to drink flat champagne (doesn't that just turn into 'wine' if it's bubbly free?) so I was just being environmentally friendly. Or something.

So with one thing and another (cleaning the flat, doing the dishes, watching that Alan Carr DVD again and going to ASDA to get enough dried cat food to keep Spirit and Sable from eating the neighbours until Sunday at least), I ended up leaving the flat at around 3.30pm and getting to Manchester Piccadilly for just before 4pm. I bought my ticket at one of those 'fast track ticket machines' and climbed up to the main station.

Where was my train? Where was any train to London? I searched the departure board over and over again. Liverpool Lime Street and Llandudno were up there but no London. Had terrorists finally got the capital and wiped it off the map while I'd been scrubbing scrambled egg from the bottom of my pans in the sink?

I joined a queue. Well, I am British after all and it's what we do. After a while I saw a lady in a hi-viz jacket and a clip board who looked like she might be able to tell me what was going on. Being British and hating to leave a perfectly good queue I waited about ten minutes before being brave enough to go and speak to her. She told me what I'd been dreading. Due to over running rail works at Rugby there were no direct trains to London today. Or tomorrow. In fact there are no direct trains now until 2nd January - is that possible?

So I queued up (again) for the train to Sheffield. However, when it arrived there were only 2 carriages and about 200 people (most of them single mothers with 20 bags from Primark and pushchairs full of screaming kids) so I graciously backed away and went to find the next train to Sheffield that I could be at the front of a queue for. It was on platform 14 but that was changed randomly to platform 4 at the last minute. Fortunately that gave me the chance to explain circumstances to a rather Josh Hartnett looking boy and his chubby friend with a strange laugh (imagine 8 year old girl being squeezed through a mangle while being tickled with ostrich feathers and you get the idea).

Eventually we were on the train to Sheffield. It was a 'Transpennine Express' so I was thinking at least there'd be views of mountains and sheep. But no - it was dark now and pouring with rain so all I could see was black. It was like being on the Starship Enterprise and hoping to see a black hole out there that might just take me away from all this.

And to use the word 'Express' was a joke. In fact it's such a joke that as we neared Sheffield, we were informed that because the train was so slow we'd now missed the train to London and were advised to continue on to Doncaster where there'd be a London train in about another hour or so.

So I sat there. Trying to move about in my seat so I could get a view of the boy who looks like Josh Harnett but instead only getting the sight of his chubby friends with the laugh. And there was a girl a few seats down who was talking loudly on the phone. She had a very attractive boyfriend (in a scally kind of way) but she didn't seem to be able to start any sentence without prefixing it with the words 'Why don't you...' or 'Why can't you...' and I wanted to kill her for it.

For example:
"Why haven't you called me already? Well I'm on the train now"
"Why don't you come and meet me here then?"
"Why don't you watch a DVD while you're waiting?"
"Why don't you ask her over then?"
"Why don't you get a curry in?"
"Why don't I get a curry on the way then?"
"Why don't you have a pizza instead then?"
"Why don't you decide what you want and we'll get it when I get there?"
"Why hasn't she been put to bed already?"
"Why didn't you call him earlier about that?"
"Why don't you just tell me about it later then?"

I felt like saying "why don't you get off that phone you nasty little chav in hoop earrings and a bad nylon top and stare out of the window like the rest of us before I jam your head in that Primark bag till you stop breathing and then show your boyfriend what a real blow job feels like!"
But of course I didn't.

So eventually we got to Doncaster. The tannoy says there's a train to King's Cross in about 10 minutes so I scurried about the platform trying to get an idea of what Doncaster looks like (from what I can tell it's a building site with a car park and a bus station) before joining the rest of the scrum onto the train that turned up. I grabbed a seat and stared up into the eyes of a very handsome man with nice hair and amazing arms. He was sitting across from me and however hard I tried not to stare I couldn't help it. Unfortunately, we were soon surrounded by other passengers who got on the train at Doncaster as well.

Well all hell broke loose. It turns out that it's a first class only train and we're not welcome with our standard tickets. Eventually we were told we could travel but we're not allowed to sit down as that's for first class ticket holders only. I managed to talk nicely to the train manager and he allowed me to sit down in the next carriage if there's a seat free. I had to bid farewell to the handsome man with the arms and what a sad moment that was I must say.

I took my seat and looked around me. Directly across from me was a good looking young gay man on his lap top and to the side of me were two very handsome Yorkshire men on their way to London. One looked like he should be the dashing young love interest in a BBC Dickensian drama and the other looked like Danny Dyer. They were busy discussing whether or not you can get a 17 year old to go 'all the way' if it's on holiday instead of at home.

Happy with my lot, I enjoyed the rest of my journey to London in first class, surrounded by good looking men with nice hair and good skin. Once at King's Cross I got the tube back to Finsbury Park and climbed the stairs to my flat. After a brief inspection all seemed to be well and despite the mountain of post that I decided to go through tomorrow (probably unpaid bills, council tax and court orders), I settled down to watch Extras, Lara Croft and The Queen (all at the same time) with a bottle of Shiraz Rose.

I'd best get to bed as I've got this film crew arriving at 9.30am to film the first bit of the Channel 5 thing with Martin Lewis. I can't have bags under my eyes while on camera after all.