5th August

5^th August

The party went well. There were some 14 year old kids there that managed to drink themselves sick. Ah, it reminds me of younger times of my own! To my utter surprise Joh_ and Jos_ made it to the show, which was a bit of a treat. I seemed to have forgotten what joh_ told me previously, that he’s had his head shaved; he looks like Vin-Diesel now.

Summer shines down on this quiet station in the middle of Thetford, a posh tree-ridden town with unusually long street names. The atmosphere is a quiet Sunday summer, cloudless and hot. I can hear the rustle of trees far away, and some distant cars and the chatter of some travellers waiting, I presume for the same train. I wonder how many are going as far as me today. It arrives at 3.15

There are a lot of forest areas around here, it looks like a lovely place to live if your bank balance is ten figures long. The two carriage train is almost full, I have to sit in a reserved seat (at some later stage of the journey). The ticket man is having a difficult conversation with a man further down the train. This train takes me all the way to Sheffield, or so I thought, but when I heard the man near me ask for a ticket to Stanstead airport I became quite worried. As the ticket man told him he would need to change trains at an upcoming station, I relaxed though.

The movie is playing in reverse, its speed varies. Still more trees pass as we return to Ely; A Pleasant town with many rivers, boats and Idyllic houses. The summer sky complements the town perfectly.

But now the journey was starting to get crammed. There were too many people for the two car train. In the end I gave up my seat to this woman and child and stood up, balancing on the luggage rack. I was not alone in standing. About 30 others joined the standing brigade at Nottingham. I stood near my luggage and did not want to move; It would be difficult to apprehend a bag robber on this crowded train!

At Nottingham, the train stopped for a while. This was to let it have some maintenance work done on it. I envisaged for a second, going up to the ticket man and asking if we would have another carriage. “More??!!! More??!!” he replies in a Dickens inspired sequence. After this maintenance, drivers change, or at least I assumed so as the returning driver had no idea of where the train was meant to stop, so he stopped at every station, not just the scheduled ones. My legs were aching, the child before me screaming uncontrollably. Why do parents bring unruly children they cannot control on public transport? By the time we arrived at Sheffield, it was 7pm

This was nothing compared to the ridiculous farce at the bus station. When I got to the stand I saw the next x78 bus would be in 25 minutes time. Not an unreasonable wait, I surmised. The bus arrived, but the driver closed the doors and started walking up the aisle talking on his mobile phone for ages. Eventually he stepped off the bus and informed us that the bus was broken, he was taking it back to the depot, and another would be along shortly. By “shortly” he meant we would have to wait 70 minutes for the next one.

That’s where I am now; In a bus station which is too warm, with some Chavs (track suited Youths), some eastern family (quite extended I'll tell you) whose children are loud in the quiet bus station and Romeo and Juliet! At least they would be if it was legal to do so in public. As it is they can only slobber over each other, suck on each others faces, and I'm sure his hand has gone up her modest skirt at least once! God, give me a break.

He’s not either. The foreigners family has come over and stood, or stopped, directly behind me. Their children’s screams are akin to animal noises. It was short lived though, the bus arrived 15 minutes later. The x78 service is supposed to run “up to every nine minutes”. Funnily enough, today feels 10 times worse than normal, which is 10 times worse than what the bus says anyway. So, the journeys over, but not the dream; the dream goes on forever.