Journey to London

I needed to go to a job interview just south of London.

I knew I had a potential job interview on my last visit in Northumberland – so on my flight back to Amsterdam, I took my suit with me – by wearing it because the UK has tight limits on hand luggage and that include no floppy suits. I didn’t want to put it in the hold luggage as I know airport handlers like to play football with them (I probably would in that job).

So, all set, flew to Holland, live life, work the work, and et voila, the date has been set for an interview! All I needed to do was fly to London, and get a short train to ThisPlaceSouthofLondon. I still have to wear my suit on the flight, but that made things easier, as I didn’t need to change.

On checking my suit, I noticed it was dirty! There were mysterious marks on it, and it was too late to dry clean it. Bollocks! So, quickly changed my flights to Newcastle for the night before the interview, and picked up my spare suit there and then get a train down to London. Worked out I needed to get the 9am train, and I will have around an hour to spare.

‘Lo and behold, left my house at 7.30am, gridlock on the A1 – a lorry had jack-knifed on an adjacent trunk route, so all traffic piled onto the A1 during rush hour. Decided to park up at a park-and-ride, took the Metro in, and missed my 9am train.

Luckily, the guy at the ticket counter was understanding, and gave me an alternative ticket and then told me I’d have to go via Derby to get to London! Turned out the power lines were down near Kings Cross. Not good.

In a rush, I got onto the next GNER train and a conductor looked at my ticket and said I’m on the wrong train. I was meant to be on the 9.35, not the 9.30 train and I must get off at the next station or I will have to pay £100 for a new ticket. I asked him, “for the sake of 5 minutes?!?”. He nodded, and said if he finds I’m still on the train after the next station, I will have to cough up.

Got off at Darlington, and jumped on the next GNER train in, and then realised that my new tickets was for a Virgin Train, not GNER as I originally booked. So I got off at York, caught a Virgin Train to Derby, or so I thought.

The conductor there told me it stops at Sheffield because of some problems I couldn’t hear, and needed to get another train to Derby. By this stage, I was starting to wonder if it could possibly get any worse.

I eventually managed to get to Derby, and saw my connecting Midland Mainline train departing the station as we rolled in. Why don’t someone synchronise these trains?!

I eventually arrived in London St. Pancras 1:45hrs overdue for my interview. I caught the tube (luckily I still had an oyster card, or I’d be standing in a long line of ticket buyers at Kings Cross), got to Waterloo (never been there before) and spent ages trying to find a ticket machine for my connection train, missed my connection – the doors were closing as I reached it.

I eventually arrived at the office for my interview 2.5hrs late.

…And the problems didn’t stop there…