Travel woes

I can always tell if the Northern line is packed up before I get to it by the number of unhappy faces at the bus stops approaching the station.

This morning there were lots of unhappy faces. Not angry, just resigned.

And sure enough the grill was across the entrance to the station. So I took a bus to the overground train station. This is exactly what happened on the morning of 7/7, so of course I had a moment of concern, but it just doesn't feel the same.

The Northern line was having problems yesterday, my journey was bad enough, but the Vol-in-Law had a dreadful journey back - including a PTI (person taken ill) - a guy collapsed right in front of him on a crowded, hot train. Someone pulled the passenger alarm to the chagrin of the ViL "we could have just rolled him onto the platform."

So anyway, there doesn't appear to be anything more malicious at play here than the scandalous underfunding of the Transport for London infrastructure.

Of course, it's raining and there's a distinct chill in the air and I arrived at the train station JUST in time to see my train pulling away and they only run every half hour. (The rain is not coincidental, we often have travel problems when it rains. Seems those who designed and run the network never anticipated any precipitation in England.)

I give up a seat on a bench to visit a little store in search of breakfast. The nearest store is run by Tamils, so the stock is mostly strange, vibrantly colored chutneys and frozen fish. Of course this store also caters to the burgeoning Polish population in the area so there's also a goodly selection of jars of orange fat, weird tinned soups with pictures of happy picnicking families (who picnics with soup?) and frozen cabbage dumpling balls (at least that's what I think they are, my Polish reading skills are poor). I consider a coke and some Doritos as these are among the few foodstuffs I recognise, but choose a V8 as a healthy option.

On my return to the station they've announced that the train is running even later. I have a cold and I have to pee (are there any toilets at the station, 'course not).

On the upside, at least you can smoke at an overground station. I love London, but days like these...