Friday, December 09, 2005

Oh, mister porter, what shall I do?

I wanted to go to Birmingham, but they've carried me on to Crewe. *

Saturday night saw a personal first... I fell asleep on the train and missed my stop. Having spent the evening with J&A in St Albans I caught the 10:04 train back to King's Cross Thameslink. Unfortunately, despite the modest libations, my eyelids grew heavy and the train whisked me through KX, across London, over the Thames and was heading out the other side.

I awoke with a start to find I was at *lovely* Elephant and Castle. As luck would have it the train was not headed for Brighton and Hove or Hastings but, far more modestly, Wimbledon. So I sat it out, did a backward zag-zig to Clapham Junction and Wandsworth Town and arrived home half an hour later than originally anticipated.

Note to self: Set timer on phone next trip.

* Marie Lloyd


Ballpoint Wren said...

That's terrible! But funny!

I guess it's a good thing you aren't driving after a long day's work. Mary would really miss you if you fell asleep on the road.

MarkMcL said...

I am not alone...

I can tell you there will be a lot more "sleepers" in the run up to Christmas. London has an extensive public transport system and many people use it.
Every day, about 30 million journeys are taken in Greater London:

6.3 million by bus
3 million by Tube
1.4 million by rail
150,000 on the DLR
11 million by car or motorcycle
7 million on foot
333,000 by bicycle

This morning I had to let two trains go by they were so packed it was impossible to get on.

Between now and Christmas there will be many happy revellers waking up in far flung locations going "Oh flip!".