Trains are better than cars. They just are.
I had a lovely weekend, on the whole, but travel-wise, everything I touched turned to dust.
On Saturday, I pitched up at Paddington on my way to Reading to pick up the girls, only to find that the line was closed. Much of the trip was by bus. :-( My usual two hour trip turned into a three and a half hour trek. (On the way back, I came via Clapham Junction, which was marginally faster.)
On Sunday, Michael, the girls and I drove down to Brighton in the A4 he's borrowed from his boss. (The verdict? A hairdressers car.) What a mistake. Google reckoned on a little over an hour for the trip, but we factored in the bank holiday, and doubled it. We weren't even close; it took us four and a quarter hours. Nightmare.
We had a really nice time once we were there, though - beach, picnic, paddling, pier, funfair, ice cream, you know the kind of thing. Half-naked women are always a bonus, too. The trip back was much easier - about two and a half hours.
On Monday, the girls and I left for Reading early. Cath wanted to take them to Mapledurham for a civil war reenactment, and there were still no trains out of Paddington. It turned out to be more of a skirmish than a battle. A brawl, even. Still, the girls were suitably impressed by the guns. Their new little brother Ruben wasn't so keen.
By the time I'd trekked back home again, I'd clocked up over eighteen hours in transit over the three day weekend. No wonder I'm so knackered.
Oh, and trains are better than cars 'cos even if they are horribly delayed, you can entertain your children and let them go to the loo, cutting down on the strop count considerably.
Anyway, pictures here.
Posted to Apropos of nothing by Simon Brunning at May 03, 2005 04:15 PM