Observations on a Journey

I stayed in London last night, so decided to try something a little different and fly out of London City rather than Heathrow for my upcoming journey to Madrid. I think I’ve decided that this was a mistake. I was staying at R’s in Hammersmith, and the journey to City is much longer than it was in my head. In retrospect, Heathrow would have been much simpler; just a quick trip down the Piccadilly line. The DLR (something Richard has written about before) didn’t help. Only a few years after opening a potentially useful extension to London City, they are already deciding to play the UK rail game and shut it at the weekends for engineering work; a bus was needed. Pathetic.

The journey was tinged by a strange sadness, too. A middle-aged woman who had been sitting opposite me on the Piccadilly line for a few minutes, to all outward appearances entirely normal, suddenly surreptitiously slipped a can of Strongbow out of her (smart leather) handbag and swigged a gulp, then slipped it back in - all as discreetly as possible. Fortunately for me, I’ve never been close to anyone who’s been affected by alcoholism, but it began to dawn on me how strange an addiction it must be to need a drink in such a place - and from such a person. I wasn’t sure if I should feel sorry for her.

Comments

Yeah. Not helped by credit card issues in the hotel I've just checked into, shoelace breaking at airport issues, and so on... Oh well.
Ouch! The journey sounds like a nightmare :-(