Saturday travels

Does anyone else ever have the feeling that some days it would have been better all round if they'd just stayed in bed? Pull up the covers, ignore the sun outside and pretend that the coming twenty-four hours isn't happening? I felt a bit like that yesterday. Day started off okay, the weather was nice, even at 6.30 in the morning and I decided as I mentioned earlier in the week to take myself off on the train. I'd even done some research on the web the night before and a day out to Great Malvern and Hereford looked appealing and do-able in a day. Planned the trains I would need to catch and knew which bus to get from home to get me to the station in time.

I wasn't feeling very cheerful yesterday, not with Friday's news at work - still got a job, just not the one I am doing now and I am not at all happy about that. Probably spoke my mind a little too forcefully as well and feeling a mix of anger, frustration, disappointment and anxiety about the future. My mood didn't really lift during the day and perhaps that along with everything else wasn't conducive to a day of 'getting away from it all.'

Anyhows, got up, dressed, had breakfast. Packed the things I needed the night before, so just needed to grab my bag and wait for the bus...which went sailing by as I left my flat, 5 minutes early! Okay, not to worry, I can walk through to the other main route and there's bound to be another bus. Sure enough, there would be, but for not twenty minutes which would be too late to make my train. So, with just enough time to spare, I decided to walk to Bletchley station, which is the nearer of the two stations I use.

Hot, sweaty but relieved I arrived at Bletchley with about 5 minutes to spare to get my ticket and train. Had ticket in my hand, just about ready to head off to get the train, when the fire alarm went off, station evacuated in a chaotic and hopelessly disorganised way. Turns out it was nothing more than the cappuccino machine in the coffee bar, which had set the alarm off. However, of course in the meantime the train I was meant to catch came into the station, stopped and sailed off again. So there went my plan to get to Hereford. It was still possible but I decided it probably wouldn't have been worthwhile.

Subsequent to missing my planned train, I had long waits for connections at both Milton Keynes Central and Northampton. Plan B came into action whilst I was waiting at Northampton and I had some vague idea of heading out to Crewe or Stafford. The connection would be okay at New Street or at least it was until the train I was on from Northampton was delayed due to signalling problems between Rugby and Coventry so I missed my connection from New Street.

By the time I got to Birmingham New Street it was time for Plan C, although I had no Plan C and was by now thoroughly pissed off. I very nearly just got the next train home but decided that would be an expensive waste of a day. If nothing else I was going to get value out of my West Midlands Day Ranger ticket. So I spent the day listlessly exploring the West Midlands by train, not enjoying any of it, my mind elsewhere and my anger and frustration at work on Friday compounded by the plans that had gone awry earlier in the day.

I suppose if nothing else, I should have a contingency plan in place in the future and at least make a day of it when I am in a better mood.