Off and On

Paddington Railway Band

'Paddington Railway Band': view this photo in Flickr.

If you find yourself travelling through Paddington railway station between 19:30 and 21:30 on a Friday evening, I very much recommend that you pause for a while, and listen to the live music provided by the Great Western Paddington Railway Band. Similar in composition to a military band, with brass, woodwind and percussion, they are very good, and entertain travellers for 2 hours every Friday evening. Very relaxing start to the weekend.

The joys of travel

Ho hum... no problems on the train into Paddington this morning - this time we've got severe delays on the Circle Line.

The joys of rail travel

Late into the office again - signalling problems in the Ealing area, so all trains delayed in and out of Paddington.

Buy one get 1 free

Made me smile to see this in the window of a cut-price shoe shop today.  When you buy one shoe, you do rather expect a second shoe to be thrown in as part of the deal!  :)

Good service?

When you get on a bus, you have a basic expectation that it'll take you somewhere, and you might even expect that it'll take you there reasonably quickly, always allowing for delays caused by other traffic on the road. What you don't expect, and shouldn't have to, is that, as happened to me just half an hour ago, the driver gets off the bus without a word of explanation or apology, in order to make a private phone call on his mobile phone. Just 2 stops before the bus stop outside Southall Railway Station, there were several of us who were hoping to catch the 10:52 train to London. We should have caught it with several minutes to spare. The only reason we did catch it was that it was running several minutes late.

Maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old woman, but I'm increasingly fed up with paying for shoddy and sub-standard services!

Almost home

'Almost home': view this photo in Flickr.

8.30pm - back in Southall and almost home. Lots of traffic as usual.

Train full of rubbish from previous trips

Yuck!  This train is filled with rubbish from previous trips - newspapers, food wrappers, cardboard cups, etc.  I'm disgusted at the way some people just dump their rubbish on the floor, on seats and on tables, and it's infuriating that the train companies (First Great Western Link in this case) think it's OK to inflict conditions like this on paying customers.  This train arrived in Oxford from London over 15 minutes ago - plenty of time for a team of cleaners to have gone through it and given it a basic clean and tidy.  I shudder to think what state the toilet is in, and can only hope that I don't have to use it.

Back to reality

Had a lovely afternoon with Lynn, even if it did pour with rain just after I arrived - didn't last long. Back at the railway station and guess what? The 18:30 to London is now 1 hour late. And that meant that there were loads of people trying to get on the 18:38 to Brighton in order to change at Reading. Didn't stand a chance of getting a seat, so now waiting for the 19:00, which starts here (so I'll have no problem getting a seat) and which also means I won't have to change en route. Swings and roundabouts...

A patient sister awaits

'A patient sister awaits': view this photo in Flickr.

And met up with Lynn at last too!

Made it!

'Made it!': view this photo in Flickr.

Oxford at last!