What is it about traffic jams that drivers love so much? They sit in them day after day, hour after hour, and never get bored. It’s beyond me. As a spectator sport, it’s quite funny but, participation seems a bit odd.
I wondered this as I waited for the bus to take me to Farnham Station. I was headed, ultimately, for Battle. It’s the annual Christmas Weasel sojourn to St Omer, and this year I’m going.
I set off quite late because Mirinda had drinks at work and I wanted to stay with the girls, feeding them before leaving. And so I found myself, shivering on Farnham Station waiting for the 18:30 train to London.
It was very cold overnight with a pretty solid frost. In fact, by the time the sun went down, our grass showed up how much actually sees the sun during the day.
A number of years ago smoking on railway stations was banned in England. Apparently, at Farnham anyway, you can smoke all you want to after 6pm. I have to say, that’s amazingly liberal of them.
They are not so liberal at Waterloo East, where I had to change train lines. Except when it comes to using the toilet.
The gents had a sign on the door saying a burst pipe meant it was unusable. I headed for the disabled toilet, thinking to myself that the gents was, actually, disabled as well.
The train to Battle arrived on time and I managed to get a seat and we set off across the countryside. All was good until we reached Tonbridge where we were held at a red light.
The guards said it was because of a passenger train coming in and a freight train that was heading for the coast. I watched the freight train very slowly creep into the station, thinking we were going to be stuck there for a few hours. As it turned out, we were delayed 14 minutes. And the freight train didn’t go to the coast.
Of course, I texted John my progress. For reasons known only to his landmine, my messages were read out by a computer voice. Eventually, he texted me to say I didn’t need to update anymore as he was charting my position. According to Anthea every time the phone rang they both said “Where’s Gary now?”
I arrived at Battle and John was there to meet me. Over a bottle of delightful Italian red, John, Anthea and I talked until midnight, before collapsing into our respective beds.
Tomorrow, France.
