Trains are hating me at present

Here’s a photograph for anyone who thinks the traffic in London is bad in 2011. It was taken around 1900 and is of London Bridge.

Traffic on London Bridge in c1900

This was taken by Mr Anon from the south bank heading into London proper. Scary! So much traffic, so much horse manure. It’s images like this that make me realise how bad it really could be.

The image is from an exhibition at the Museum of London called ‘London Street Photography 1860-2010’ which I saw today. Fantastic! Some amazing early photographs in a display which runs chronologically along the walls. In fact, looking at the later pictures with colour and digital processing, sometimes the older ones run circles around them.

Anyway, I highly recommend the exhibition. It’s free and excellent.

The reason I went was because Mirinda had to attend a conference near St Paul’s today so we had an early lunch before walking her to hotel reception to check in. The Museum of London is not far from St Paul’s so I left her and walked over.

The day was magnificent – the best so far this year. Beautiful blue skies made everything look clean and new along the South Bank and St Paul’s looked particularly lovely.

St Paul's cathedral taken from the South Bank

Even the hordes of foreign students and their teachers couldn’t ruin the day as I strolled merrily along the South Bank to The Globe to meet Mirinda’s ferry. This was not the original plan. The original plan was for me to be on the ferry with her. Given she had to report to the conference in the afternoon, she had decided to work from home in the morning and I was going to meet her at the flat. But, well made plans and all that. It was not to be.

I was on the right train and everything was fine and then we approached Surbiton station. From what I have managed to find on the Internet, it seems someone jumped in front of a train. I hasten to add that this is unconfirmed and is from a Kingston news site. Whatever actually happened, there was a fatality and police closed the station and completely stuffed the trains up.

It must have happened just before the train I was on reached Surbiton. We sat in the middle of a particularly ugly nowhere for ages with nary a word from the conductor. After about 15 minutes it was obvious we were being held for some reason other than a red light. eventually we were told that the train wouldn’t be stopping at Surbiton because of the fatality but we’d be stopping at Berrylands (the stop after Surbiton where I’m pretty sure I’ve never been before) and passengers could catch a local bus back.

Eventually we crawled into Berrylands and a chap behind me gathered his things together and jumped off. he then immediately jumped back on and sat back down. I thought this was a bit odd but maybe he was just unsure.

After a while we started up and headed towards Waterloo again. The going was slow but eventually we stopped at Clapham Junction, another unscheduled stop. The conductor gave us a completely uninformative update and we sat there. He then came up with the suggestion that passengers could catch a train from another platform, go to Victoria and get the Tube from there. I have to say I considered it but a glance at my watch decided me against it. Time was ticking away and I’d not be making it anyway. I texted Mirinda with the latest developments, suggesting we meet at St Paul’s.

We then had another announcement. We were told that the train was likely to sit there for another 20 minutes (“…maybe longer.”) and it was suggested we go to platforms 4 & 5 where the trains were running into Waterloo without a problem. There was, however, a problem. As we all stood on platforms 4 & 5, the indicator boards were blank. A train then pulled into platform 3.

I’m not sure what prompted me (maybe the same thing that jogged my elbow that time in Verona; remember Claire?) but I thought this was a Waterloo train. I ran up the stairs and down the other side as the guard was about to blow his whistle. I asked and was told, yes, it was going straight to Waterloo. I sat down, the doors closed and off we went. I glanced across at the platform I’d escaped from. It was still crowded with hopeful passengers looking confused.

I managed to get to Waterloo half an hour later than planned and called Mirinda. We planned to meet at the ferry stop. So I had a lovely walk along South Bank rather than a lovely ferry ride along the Thames. So it goes, I ‘spose.

The trains were still a bit odd when I returned to Waterloo later in the day but I managed to fluke a train straight away and was home by 4 where I hitched up the dogs and took them for a walk around the park. They were very grateful. This is how lovely the park looked. The two black dots to the right are the dogs.

Farnham Park looking lovely in the late afternoon

Back at home I mowed the lawn for the first time this year (this will now continue for many months) and celebrated with a thoroughly deserved beer.

Mirinda is off to see Keira Knightly tonight with Ben (not Fogle, I hasten to add) so I’ll not hear from her till quite late. I hope she enjoys herself because the reviews were not very good.

Here’s another photo from the exhibition (just for luck). It’s of a milkman in Charing Cross in 1937. I quite like it.

Milkman at Charing Cross