We had a bit of miscommunication on how we were going to get to the train station. I thought we were walking, there had been mention of Glühwein from the Christmas market…

I know how long it takes me to walk to the station and time was running short so I went on ahead and told Mr C I would meet him at the station. When I had been at the station for a few minutes there was no sign of him catching me up so I phoned to see where he was and thought there was no way he was going to get to the station on time. A few minutes later I saw him running towards the platform, arriving just as the train pulled into the station. Talk about cutting it fine. Later he mentioned that he intended that we should drive to the station!

There was standing room only on the train which meant by the time we arrived in Birmingham my left knee had become a bit stiff. This caused me to stumble on the stairs and bang my leg. Oops! The young man behind me helped me regain my balance and walked beside me for the last few steps of the stairway.

At the top of the stairway, I was impressed to see Ozzy the mechanical bull that was created for the Commonwealth Games.

This years Christmas market and Christmas lights were less impressive so I wasn’t able to take my replacement camera through its paces.

Back in Wellington we had just missed the Christmas Lights ‘Switch On’. The lights looked lovely lighting up the town. The atmosphere was lovely and uplifiting with a long queue waiting to enter the market’s late night opening event.  We visited one of the local hostelries (which was packed to the seams) for a glass of something warming before our walk home.

Last Friday Mr C took the day off work and we headed off to Manchester so that he could go clothes shopping. We arrived at the station in plenty of time to catch the train to Wolverhampton. The connecting train from Wolverhampton to Manchester was slightly delayed. Whilst we were waiting the display boards and announcement system developed a fault and failed.  That meant that the staff had to resort to manual announcements some of which were quite amusing.

When we got on the train my reserved seat was next to a lady with a young daughter sitting on her knee. The young girl was such a sweetie and was well behaved even when she got bored towards the end of the journey. At one point she was eating sweets from a bag, one of which was a long jelly snake. When the snake was fully emerged from the bag she pointed its head at me and said, ‘hiss’. I said, ‘is it coming to get me?’, causing her to giggle and her eyes to light up. A bit later in the journey she put her finger to her lips and said, ‘Shhh’ on more than one occasion. Shortly after this Mr C snapped his glasses case shut with a loud bang. He then put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shhh’ causing her to giggle again.

On our arrival in Manchester we hopped onto a free bus into town, where it dropped us near to the Italian Restaurant, Don Marco, where we had booked an early lunch. As we walked that last bit of the way towards the restaurant Mr C pointed out the hotel that he had stayed in a couple of weeks ago when he was in Manchester on business. The skyscraper hotel emerged from behind some classic architecture towering above its surroundings. Rather him than me! I would have felt really uncomfortable sleeping in a place like that.  The view from the higher rooms, however, is spectacular as can be seen in the photograph below that was taken by Mr C.

Lunch was wonderful. We sat next to the window with a glass of wine and the sun shining in, watching the world go by. The sun however was short lived; as we left the restaurant it started to rain. It always rains in Manchester! As we made our way to the shops Mr C showed me some of the sights that he had found when he briefly worked in Manchester a few years ago. This included The John Ryland Library, the building where he worked, and an ornate passageway which led to St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, the ‘Hidden Gem’.

We then made our way to Waterstones for a quick browse around, where I was tempted to buy a book by Antonia Frazer. When we left the shop we found that the heavens had opened and it was now pouring down with rain. I managed to take a few photographs but it was rather difficult juggling a camera in one hand and an umbrella in the other. We carried on to the other shops that Mr C had on his list and when he had successfully completed his shopping spree we returned to the station, becoming rather soggy along the way.

There were two trains showing on the board and that we could choose from. We elected for the slightly later one with a change at Shrewsbury. This allowed us time to enjoy a drink (of the non-alcoholic variety) before it was time to catch the train. Unfortunately our choice of route turned out to be a mistake. The journey was pleasant looking out at the sights as the train sped along but when we got to Shrewsbury the connection train was not waiting on the platform as it should have been. We were informed that it had been cancelled and that we would have to catch the next one! We decided to have a cup of tea rather than wait outside on the platform. As we were drinking our tea we learned that the next train had also been cancelled and that the problem was a train had broken down on the line just outside Shrewsbury. There was no information available on how long the delay would be. There was also a separate problem with trains heading for Aberystwyth where a fault had developed on the track.

The trains in and out of Shrewsbury had ground almost to a halt. A little while later we were informed that replacement buses for the inaccessible destinations had been booked. However there was no information on how long they would take to arrive. We were eventually informed that the first bus had arrived and that we should make our way to the front of the station. We knew by the size of the crowd that it was unlikely that we would be able to get on it. When it came down to it, the two people in front of us got the last two seats on the bus. The bus was expected to go Wellington station where people could catch connecting trains to their destination and then return to pick up more passengers. However the bus didn’t return! As we waited for what turned out to be over an hour, other coaches arrived for people going to other destinations and the track problem on the other line was fixed. Some people called for taxis and shared them with others to reduce the cost. Others called for friends to come and pick them up.

As we waited we were kept entertained by the antics on the carpark. There was some rather alarming driving in the car park as taxis and cars came and went. An accident was bound to happen sooner or later. It turned out the culprit would be a small red mini car which came in slowly and parked at a very jaunty angle whilst waiting for a passenger. When the mini reversed up to leave it reversed into a taxi! Luckily there was no damage. A food delivery lorry arrived and reversed close to another taxi before opening the rear door to offload the delivery. This didn’t look very safe and caused the taxi driver to move his car to a safe distance. After the alarming unloading proceeding, the two lorry drivers dragged wheeled crates through the middle of the waiting passengers causing them to scatter. When they went to collect the second part of the delivery they decided on a different route and nearly crashed the crates into a taxi that was parked up.

In contrast to the young girl we had encountered on the morning train there was a young boy behaving like a naughty little monkey. He was vigorously shaking one of the poles that held hanging baskets. I am not sure where his parents were whilst this was going on. Eventually a station employee walked over to him and wagged his finger in a no no motion. The boy soon disappeared.

Eventually a much smaller bus arrived and the last of the commuters (including us) going in our direction were able to get on it. The bus and driving were rather worrying and I wondered if it was going to break down. It made some alarming noises as it sped up on the motorway. As we neared our destination instead of going to the station car park (which caters for buses) the driver opted to drive to the other side of the station up narrow roads and into the town centre. At one stage he mounted the curb as he was trying to turn avoiding a taxi that had parked on a corner on double yellow lines. The bus tilted alarmingly and I had visions of it tipping over onto the taxi. The driver reversed up a bit and managed the turn on his second attempt. After he had dropped us off at the station I was wondering how he was going to get the bus out of the narrow location where he dropped us off. We eventually arrived home at 21.15, more than two hours later than expected!

I would have liked a long soak in the bath when I got home, but that was not to be. The water pump on our heating system had broken down the day before leaving us with no hot water. But that is a story for another day…

The journey there and back was painless and the trains were on time and there were plenty of places to sit.  I had forgotten what a long trek it is from the Birmingham International to the NEC, I certainly got my exercise for the day.  The last time we went to the show in 2008 it was rather disappointing because a lot of our old favourites had pulled out and there was not very much that interested us.  I am glad to say it had picked up again this year and although some of our old favourites were still absent there were new things to interest us.

We were also lucky that I had got my dates muddled up and left it too late to order tickets in advance.  Some very generous people helped us out on the way in, meaning we saved money on the entry fee.

We came away with a naughty pie for tea, which I can confirm was absolutely delicious.  Don’t forget that I did a lot of walking so I earned it

I dislike using the London underground (especially on my own) so I  carefully plotted my route to avoid it.  When I was purchasing my ticket at the counter yesterday, I was very kindly provided with a little summery of the times of the trains I needed to do this.  It turned out that it was a good job I picked that route because there had been an incident on the the track just before Euston and the tubes weren’t accessible without a diversion, which would have made me very late for the meeting.

Last time I arrived at Clapham Junction, the gap between the train and the platform was so great I actually had to leap off the train because my leg couldn’t reach the platform.   So I was rather alarmed when I heard this announcement when we were approaching Clapham:

The train will shortly be arriving at Clapham Junction, mind the gap.  Please be careful not to fall between the train and the platform because this will be extremely embarrassing for you and will result in the train being delayed from leaving the station.

The passengers looked at each other and fell about laughing. Thankfully the gap was much smaller than last time!!!

The meeting went well and we have the conference motions sorted out, so our work is done until the time of the conference.

The train journey back was going so well until I reached Birmingham.  The train I was due to catch broke down in the tunnel.  We knew there was something wrong because there was another train on the platform that was due to leave a couple of minutes after the one I was due to catch.

The staff from that train were all on the platform peering up the track expectantly, they had no more idea what the problem was than we did.  Eventually there was an announcement to say there was a problem with the train and more details would be given shortly.  Luckily I knew there was another train in 20 minutes so I wasn’t too worried but non regular travelers were left a bit bewildered because there was no proper announcement.