The day the world forgot

I've had an entry in my calendar for quite some time, ITV1 11pm. It's been bugging me all day, what could possibly be on at this ghastly hour? I have just consulted the TV Guide: "The Day My Boobs Went Bust", failed boob jobs. Hmmm....

The Great Escape

The lady I was sitting next to on the train was proudly telling someone on the phone that she was going to be on time and she would shed her reputation of constantly being late. She pointed out that it was only 7:32 and that she was just pulling into the station for her 7:40 meeting. The guy sitting opposite her pointed out that it was actually 7:31 in a feeble attempt to fire up a conversation and possibly get lucky :o) He was interested. They chuckled, although in her case she did so uncomfortably, making it as obvious as possible that she was on her way to see her boyfriend. She was not interested; she got off the train and was greeted by an older woman (mother?).

And so I trundled along on the 19:27 service to Woking (1927 being the year the train was put into service).

damn, Damn, DAMN

Funny sequence of events. Eating at my desk a bit of my salad fell on my jumper: damn. I reach for my emergency tissues and remember that I lent them to my manager for an all day meeting: Damn. And my phone starts to ring: DAMN. If there is a God, then he has a sense of humor.

Horrorscope

My horoscope says today I could find the love of my life at a cultural gathering or an art exhibition. What time does the Tate shut tonight?

This train will self combust in 5...4...3...2..

A 9 carriage train leaves London at 07:21 to Plymouth. By 11:37 only 3 carriages arrive. It's a great money saving technique, 3 trains in one, but for people like me who join early in the train's journey, can it get anymore complicated?

First, you need to figure out which part of your train is going to where you want to go to. The whole train goes to Salisbury where the train divides. The front 6 coaches continue to Exeter where the train loses another few carriages. Then the rear 3 coaches (who needs consistency?) go on to Plymouth.

Just in case you're finding it hard to follow that, due to short platforms at certain stations, you need to be in the front/rear/middle 2/3/4 coaches as otherwise the doors won't open, and if you want to get off at Basingstoke you'll need to sit opposite a fat man whilst eating a ginger biscuit and stroking a gray guinea pig.

Watching the pennies

"Sainsbury's extra thick cream only 91p, that's cheaper than in Christmas 2003!!!" That's all very well, but it's not cheaper than last week :o(

You've got to laugh

I was walking along the local high street and something made me grin. I saw a shop called "Dr China" and outside it was a grinning Chinese man (possibly the doctor himself), just standing outside the shop in the middle of the pavement and smiling. He looked a bit like a mad scientist from off the telly. I don't think he gets many customers.

My big adventure of the day was trying lunch at Marks & Spencer's. Delicious! However I don't like the fact that in order to get to the food, one must wade through a whole floor of women's clothing to get to the stairs at the back. Does anyone know any shortcuts?

I joke to myself a lot, it makes life more fun. If only I spoke my mind more often. The person serving me at M&S dropped my till receipt. I humored myself by thinking they did it on purpose so they could watch me bend over to pick it up. Oh deary me. It's probably best that I keep my mouth shut.

Grumble grumble

Southern Railway trains are crap crap CRAP! The timetable's are there purely for decorational purposes. I thought I was running late this morning, arriving at the station at 7:30, but the 7:22 train I was aiming for wasn't due for another 5 minutes.

Lately they've insisted on moving late running trains to the disused platform 3. They usually make an announcement a good few minutes after this decision has been made (possibly they need at least 5 minutes to string a sentence togther). After the anouncement is made it's a quick stampede down the stairs, then a careful hop over the rubble and mangled metal that blocks the entrance to the disused platform, followed by a crawl through the weeds and a final dash for the train; which then crawls all the way to the mainline and is overtaken by the next 3 or 4 trains behind.

But once I get onto the SouthWest trains service, oh what bliss. I got chatting to the conductor today since I buy my ticket off him (Southern's ticket offices only accept shillings and farthings). This takes a few minutes due to the complicated nature of my request which I won't go into. He recognised me from the previous week (as I had made the same demanding ticket request), and was extremely polite and sincere. Hello Nick!

Mmmmmm...

...mmmmm I've rediscovered the bliss that is a sumptuous good old Scotch Pancake. Perhaps I haven't been able to find them for so long because I was under the false impression that they were called Scottish Pancakes. Yes, well done me!

Hmmm, oh my!

I'm having an unbelievably typical girl's night in! In fact it's scaring me. Moulin Rouge on the telly, photos, my shiny silver notebook I got for my birthday, glue and some colourful pens. Yes, I'm arranging pictures of my friends and writing all sorts of amusing and cute comments. Kill me now! Although this is mysteriously fun. All it needs now is some cheesy 80s music. Ah, here I go, I'll sing along to Moulin Rouge. "You can tell everybody, that this is your song!!". What a shame it would be if someone walked in on me now. Oh crap, mother always used to say "don't tempt fate".

Linz - Austria (Day 1)

I braved the savage land of Ryanair and apart from a few minor grumbles, they do what it says on the tin. They got me from A to B, or L to L if I want to be clever: London to Linz. I have to say the safety demonstration was rather incomprehensible, I'm sure at one point I heard something about Pakistan, and that "no bleeding is permitted on Ryanair flights". I had no interest in Pakistan, and no intention whatsoever of bleeding in my extremely tight seat. Very quickly I realised how they could afford to sell me a ticket for one penny (excluding airport tax). Shameless advertising of Mars bars, and the encouragement of people to buy scratchcards and gamble.

And so I arrived in Linz. The shuttle bus from the airport got me to the city centre in no time at all, and cost a fraction of my journey to Stanstead. All the way I was questioning what I was doing there.

----tired, will finish later---

Just do it

I've been worryingly impulsive lately. This bizzarre phase I'm going through has cost me a few hundred pounds in the space of two weeks, and resulted in me having a flight to Austria in 5 hours; the problem being that my excitement for Austria has fizzled out in the two weeks I've had to wait, and I now feel it's my duty to go. This should be a very interesting holiday.

I ended up in a lovely little place called Alton on Thursday night. Another random decision which resulted in a slight detour on my way home from work. I had a wonderful time exploring the landscape, and ever since then, some supernatural force has prevented me from paying for a train ticket.

I attempted to purchase an extension on my ticket to ge to Alton, but to my "disappointment" the ticket offices were closed at the stations, and there was no one on the train who had the means of providing me with one.

In the mornings I purchase a ticket from my local station to get as far as the mainline. I then purchase an extension to my final destination for £10.20, however on this occassion the ticket inspector ignored my request assuming that the ticket I wanted to extend was the ticket for my entire journey.

Then I went to visit my father after work, another opportunity to purchase a ticket on the train, however the ticket man was being trained, and by the time he had been told by a short tempered worn out lady who was guiding him, we had arrived at my stop.

It's not that I'm evading paying the fare, but that a convenient line of coincidences has not permitted me to do so. And I'm not complaining.

Safe? and Secure?

It's nice working in a restricted area. Keeps out the riff raff. Only one slight problem. In the event of an emergency and the alarms are activated, all doors are released. Not ours. It's nice working in a restricted area.

Working From Home

My commute to work

8:11 I get out of bed and stretch
8:12 I arrive at my laptop in the living room, ready for work.

I really do need a real commute to work, just something that says "hey you're in the office, WORK". I walked into the kitchen to get something to eat and did the dishes. Whilst my chicken pie was in the oven, I decided to take a nice hot bath. I soaked for about 20 minutes; it cleared up my stuffy nose and made me feel better. I planned my weekend and thought about what I might do for Christmas or New Year's. Then I remembered I was meant to be WORKING. Working from home is a curse; too many distractions. I didn't even feel like I was meant to be working. This was my living room. I felt like I was doing overtime. Along came 5pm, the end of my day. *click* I closed my email inbox....hmm...what now, no train to catch, nowhere to go. I really need some sort of a commute. It's so wrong aaarrrggghhh.

Where have I been today?
Bedroom
Kitchen
Living Room

BOOM bang a bang

The Metro, London's free morning newspaper for commuters, is celebrating free breakfast week by giving away vouchers for a different McDonalds breakfast item each day. On Monday it was a free coffee (in went 13 copies into my bag). Tuesday: free bagel (I dragged 16 copies out of the station). Wednesday: a free slice of fruit toast (11 copies of the Metro). Today: free porridge (7 copies). Myseteriously, I've had a back ache since Wednesday. How curious.

The newspaper madness doesn't end there! I got a tip off from the lovely Emma last night that today's Evening Standard would contain vouchers for entry to Battersea Park on Saturday to see the fireworks. It's logical: 40 pence for entry and a free newspaper? or £4.00 for entry with the added bonus of being branded a fool? So off I went to the ES (Evening Standard) stall and asked for 5 copies (just in case). "You do realise they're all the same?!" the paper guy explained. I was so tempted to get out my magnifying glass (I also have a poking stick which I carry with me) and show him the inconsistencies between the papers. On Wednesdays the ES comes with a Homes & Property section, but as I was only after the voucher I declined to take it saying "keep it, you might need it". What I meant was he could run out of them and the one I leave could go to a customer who wants it, but it came out as "you're trying to make a living off of selling newspapers, you're going to need to find a house". I only realised the magnitude of my error the moment the last word slipped out of my mouth.

My tube journey home was surreal. The lady sitting next to me was giraffe necking my paper so I turned to her and asked "do you want to read it?". After all I just wanted the voucher and had 4 more copies of the same paper in my bag, which I explained to her. Out came the voucher and she was very appreciative of the fact that I had given her a paper. I felt warm and fuzzy inside, like santa. A few minutes later I caught the guy sitting opposite me staring in my direction, so once again I offered him a paper. However, now his intentions became apparent; he was peering at me over the paper. It's nice to know that newspapers are the perfect fashion accessory for perverts.

Today was actualy rather an eventful day. There's so much to write, yet my inability to stay awake hinders me from sharing some glorious experiences with you. So I shall merely touch on them *insert picture of me touching people/things I've seen today*.

Where's this Wally?

What's the most random place I can blog from? Well we've had blog on the bog. Now the power of WiFi brings me to you from a bench on platform 7 at Victoria station. It's free too (until 7th November). A company called ReadyToSurf is offering free access to entice new customers. I was actually on the way to meet Niki who is now waiting patiently for me as I play with this new toy. Adios for now.

Where have I been today?
London
Basingstoke
London Victoria (bench on platform 7)