Yesterday was the day upon I which travelled back to Bromsgrove but the day unfolded in not quite the way I which I would have predicted. Knowing that my scheduled train was after 1.00pm, after I had packed up everything in a suitcase, I vacated my room and left my bags with reception in their ‘strong room’ whilst I contemplated any breakfast arrangements. I followed the advice of my niece and walked along a path in the famous ‘Valley Gardens’ which was, like other parks, full of dog walkers. My niece had told me about a delightful little café which was a good pace for people watching and so I treated myself to a cup of tea and a toasted teacake. The elderly gentleman on the adjacent table was cutting very thin slices from his cooked sausages and feeding them to his little spaniel companion. I struck up a conversation with him and he had lost his wife to cancer only two months ago. We exchanged reminiscences about the events surrounding the death of our respective spouses and they turned out to be remarkable similar. In both our cases, we had to wait a long time for a death certificate and then both had the experience of a doctor consulting with us about the exact wording on the death certificate. It also turned out as well that his ancestors came from Wolverhampton as did a distant grandfather of mine. So, we found we had a lot of experiences in common and had I walked in the Valley Gardens every day I am sure that an enduring friendship would have ensued. Then I decided to get a taxi to go to the station rather than trundling a heavily loaded suitcase up the hill and this worked out fine and I contemplated getting an earlier train into Leeds which would have the advantage that I would not have to rush for the Cross Country service that would coney me to Birmingham New Street. It was at this point that my day started to go downhill. The automatic entry gate would not accept the scan of my ticket and the railway staff member informed me that I had to go only on the specified train and no other. This surprised me because I can understand that policy on the cross-country train where I had a reserved seat but I dd not think that the policy applied to what I called the little ‘chug chug’ suburban trains as well. So now I had the best part of 2-3 hours to kill in Harrogate, complete of course with luggage. To pass the time, I thought that I would make for the little cafe run by a Chinese family in which I had eaten before and I thought I would have a really light lunch to help to pass the time. But when I got there, it was closed for holidays and would not reopen until Friday so my plan was thwarted. As I trundled back to the station, I found a shop that sold hot Cornish pasties in variety so I bought one of these and ate this on the station forecourt whilst also doing a ‘fiendish’ Sudoku. I did take the opportunity when the booking office was clear whether it was absolutely the case that I could not get an earlier rain but also the platform where the mainline Cross Country was due to depart where I did get the information. So eventually, when I caught my scheduled train, it was delayed because of delays to an earlier train where they had experienced some signalling difficulties. I was now getting worried that I had precious little time to alight the suburban train and claim my place on the mainline train because the scheduled 20 minutes was now down to about 11 minutes which was cutting it fine. In the event, I go to the right platform with a few minutes spare and the mainline train to Plymouth was delayed by a minute. The train when it arrived was full but not over-filled at that time of the day and that day of the week but the journey ran smoothly enough although hot drinks were not available on the train as their machinery had broken down. Birmingham New Street was quite a breeze with the Bromsgrove train departing from an adjacent platform so this transition worked well. But then I needed to phone for a taxi and this proved to be problematic. The form that I used did not respond to either a Message or a WhatsApp text so I had to rely upon a voice message. The 10 minutes delay in the taxi arriving becoming more like 25 and then we were stuck in the middle of both rush hour and the ever-present roadworks, So it took me the best part of an hour to actually get home so the actual journeying time had taken me five hours plus all of the hanging about beforehand time. So, I decided to learn the lessons from all of this the next time I plan a train journey to choose train times and ticket types with a little more care so that I have a degree of flexibility built in in case any of the adjacent links fall short. So, my experience of ‘modern’ rail travel at both Knaresborough and Harrogate railway stations was not a happy one and absolutely everything is now ‘app’ driven. I did not see a single ticket actually being utilised because every single traveller, old and young alike, seemed to rely upon their mobile phones for everything.
The morning was a little busy because our domestic help called around and we always have a lot of news to convey to each other. Then I shot down into town and had my usual ‘breakfast’ with one group of friends and coffee with another. Things were running a bit late at this stage so I returned home, made an important social telephone call and then went down for my Pilates class. Then it was a case of making myself a mackerel salad lunch and making some arrangements for a celebratory birthday meal with a close friend later in the month. As always, there are some classic comedy programs on the TV to which to look forward this evening and I am looking forward to life returning to a more normal pattern after the disruption of school and Bank Holidays.