Well this was probably a mistake...
Jun. 3rd, 2026 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glassy_witchIn my wisdom (there's precious little of it as you are about to see), I decided that I would head home to Devon to see Mum. It's the anniversary of losing the kids and also now, their mother, tomorrow - and it seemed appropriate that I don't leave Mum to handle it alone like she usually ends up doing these days. It's her 80th birthday in a week or so as well, so since I can't get down for that, this seemed like the best option.
As I still don't have my car (oh dear lord, THAT is a saga for the ages!), I opted for the train.
I can see you've already spotted my massive error.
Initial searches showed me costs of around....£299. A return ticket from what is a station on the same line as my destination. I thought I was being clever by not leaving from my own town's station since that would involve higher costs due to needing to go IN to London and then back out. Which is insane because clearly I don't want to be anywhere NEAR London, so why would I pay extra to go through there? Anyway, finally managed to find a ticket from yet ANOTHER town (to which of course I needed to be driven and will need picking up from) which was a shade under £100. I booked a seat (I am not entirely stupid) just to find that on arrival, the train on which I am to take this epic journey is several carriages shorter than it should be and happens to be missing the very carriage within which my seat was booked. Of course, being a much truncated train, it is PACKED. To the point of people standing around in already crammed vestibule areas. I mean, there was no chance of being able to fall over it was that busy, but I didn't fancy being sardined all the way to Devon.
Eventually, seats started to clear in the two carriages available (there is a third, but it's for first class only and despite having no one in it, they cannot possible let any of the plebs in there). I found one set of seats being proudly perched upon by someone who didn't realise the window seat was a seat, I guess? I perched uncomfortably and was assailed by the stench of a tuna and onion salad plus chilli nachos. Charmed.
Finally managed to move to a table seat where a young chap of maybe 30 thinks manspreading is a great plan. Turns out having a laptop back filled with two laptops and two very heavy water bottles is a great incentive to sit up straight and not have your feet in vulnerable places to get squished.
So here I am, on a UK train, using a railway that was once the envy of the world, pretty much fed up with everyone and everything ever. I have a connecting train at 9pm or so which is already 15 minutes delayed, apparently. What fun.
As I still don't have my car (oh dear lord, THAT is a saga for the ages!), I opted for the train.
I can see you've already spotted my massive error.
Initial searches showed me costs of around....£299. A return ticket from what is a station on the same line as my destination. I thought I was being clever by not leaving from my own town's station since that would involve higher costs due to needing to go IN to London and then back out. Which is insane because clearly I don't want to be anywhere NEAR London, so why would I pay extra to go through there? Anyway, finally managed to find a ticket from yet ANOTHER town (to which of course I needed to be driven and will need picking up from) which was a shade under £100. I booked a seat (I am not entirely stupid) just to find that on arrival, the train on which I am to take this epic journey is several carriages shorter than it should be and happens to be missing the very carriage within which my seat was booked. Of course, being a much truncated train, it is PACKED. To the point of people standing around in already crammed vestibule areas. I mean, there was no chance of being able to fall over it was that busy, but I didn't fancy being sardined all the way to Devon.
Eventually, seats started to clear in the two carriages available (there is a third, but it's for first class only and despite having no one in it, they cannot possible let any of the plebs in there). I found one set of seats being proudly perched upon by someone who didn't realise the window seat was a seat, I guess? I perched uncomfortably and was assailed by the stench of a tuna and onion salad plus chilli nachos. Charmed.
Finally managed to move to a table seat where a young chap of maybe 30 thinks manspreading is a great plan. Turns out having a laptop back filled with two laptops and two very heavy water bottles is a great incentive to sit up straight and not have your feet in vulnerable places to get squished.
So here I am, on a UK train, using a railway that was once the envy of the world, pretty much fed up with everyone and everything ever. I have a connecting train at 9pm or so which is already 15 minutes delayed, apparently. What fun.