My elderly uncle believes that if there are going to be disruptions on any travel services they will happen over the holidays so he tries to avoid going anywhere at Christmas or Easter, which gets him neatly and unarguably out of family get togethers.
Yesterday we took my daughter to Heathrow.
The disruptions occurred on Boxing Day, Monday. No tubes! On Tuesday service was back to normal.
We headed up to the station at 730am with her bags and discovered that contrary to what we had been told, there were no trains to Victoria that day, the above ground service was being tampered with. It was still the holiday, my uncle was right.
No amount of pleading or claims that we were told otherwise, were going to change the fact. We were cunningly diverted to Elephant and Castle, like it or not! We had never been there so broke out our tube maps and plotted our alternative route to Heathrow while waiting for the train.
The train arrived promptly, as they are usually wont to do and all went well until the driver turned the engine off at one of the stations. I groaned inwardly. But it turned out he was only waiting for the clock to change to the correct departure time since he was running about a minute early.
When he set off again he came onto the tanoi and announced,
“Ladies and gentlemen, the person who is supposed to be opening the Elephant and Castle train station has not arrived for work yet so I cannot take you there. You will have to leave the train at Herne Hill and make your own way in.”
This had to be a joke, who had ever heard of such an excuse?
We had never been to Herne Hill, passed through it often enough but never alighted. When we drew into the station the driver got off and opened all the doors and said,
“You have to leave the train here, I can take you no further,” he would offer no further help.
We got off as instructed and sort of hung around for a bit. We tried following the masses but the confident crowd dissipated into unsure individuals a few yards down the platform. There was not a rail official in sight to offer help, no TV screens to display instructions or re-assurances, no veteran traveller who had suffered the agonies of being dumped in the middle of nowhere before to share his experience. We were all stranded.
We left the station in search of a taxi. I’m sorry to say the immediate environs were grim.
After the first attempt at gaining transport to Victoria failed we found another taxi company around the corner and up the hill a bit.
As we waited outside the taxi office we watched businessmen queuing for busses across the road.
We were committed to a cab so let a bus to Westminster pass us fully loaded.
We completed our journey but not without a close shave with emotional melt down as our daughter realised she would have been completely helpless had she flexed her independent muscles and decided to make the journey alone.
Thank goodness for protective parents!
As it was she had her own story to tell but more about that later when I bring you glad tidings of great joy from our world traveller.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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