I hear that train a-comin', it's rollin' round the bend

It was lovely to visit Chloe in London yesterday. The train journeys there and back again, though, were less than stellar. I knew that would happen because yesterday morning, as my last Hezicos draw of the week, I asked 'What will my journey be like?' and then turned over:

Hezicos Tarot, Griffin 2010

Oh great, I thought. Delays, missed trains, bad stuff in general. But at least the end result will be happy. Didn't have time to post that draw yesterday morning, though, had to catch the 8.02.



The 8.02 was late. Then it was so full up, we had to stand all the way to Northampton, where a voice on the tannoy promised 4 more carriages would be added and all us standers could sit. Of course at Northampton, the 4 carriage were immediately filled by the folk who got on the train at Northampton! So we moved down the carriage and found a little place to stand by the doors. A big bloke came and stood there wanting to pass through, though we warned him there was no room further down, but being the polite country types we are and forgetting to use our urban assertiveness, we moved down into the next carriage so he could get through, and he said, 'Oh I will just stay here then,' and took our spot leaving us to stand in a space not big enough for one person, next to a folded wheel chair and a prepubescent boy and his gigantic suitcase. And so I stood there, trying not to watch a Japanese girl smiling to herself and jerking her head in her sleep in a very odd manner. Hubby went into his mental 'commuter zone' and was not sympathetic to my grumbling, which if course was very unsatisfying. And that was my two-hour train journey into London. All the while a rolling message on the screen encouraged me to 'Get a season ticket'. Yeah.

For the return I got to Hampstead tube station at 5.20 to get to Euston for the 5.46 train. But my tube train was delayed by 11 minutes and so I got to Euston at 5.41, ran up all the escalators, with my phone ringing (it was Hubby wanting to know where I was), met Hubby at the escalators and then actually sprinted all the way to Platform 17 to leap onto the train just as the doors were closing. The train was full, and so we stood all the way to Northampton again. At Northampton, for mysterious reasons known only to National Rail, our Crewe train suddenly was no longer going to Crewe but back to Euston, so we all had to get off the train and go over to the very end of another platform and wait for another train, which was delayed by 10 minutes. So there we all were, wondering what the heck was going on, all of us staring forlornly into the darkness toward the red light, waiting. On the train, the only seats we could find were right next to the stupidly-designed round loos, on the carriage with a bunch of drunken football fans who regaled us  all loudly and incessantly with the first line of 'When of the Saints Go Marching In,' and took it in turns to make their stumbling way to the loo (managing somehow to lurch into or tread on the toes of everyone they passed) where they then had to receive instruction from other passengers about how to press the button to get the door to open.

BUT, the day itself was lovely. And hopefully the 9 of Cups also represents the refund I am going to get after I send in my complaint form.