I Don't Believe It!

We have six children, and who is it that always gets into scrapes - Robbie!! I had a lonely, but very busy evening trying to catch up with all the jobs needed before our holiday and I was feeling very tired when Robbie phoned. It was his Corporal Jones voice (don't panic Mr Mainwaring) and if the pitch had got much higher he would have strangled himself. I am not sure if he was more afraid of the situation or the prospect of telling me, probably the latter! He stuttered and stumbled around the subject before admitting that he had 'got lost' in Birmingham New Street Station, found himself on the wrong platform and missed his last train home. Once again I had to make a mercy dash to Rugby to meet him, he got a train to Coventry and a taxi to Rugby!

Surprisingly for Robbie he wasn't very talkative on the way home, in fact he was snoring long before we got back to Northampton. It was 1.30am before we got home, he woke up as I reversed onto the drive, thanked me, humped out of the car and trotted into the house, leaving me to take care of myself. By the time I got in he had already made himself a pile of sandwiches and sliced up a mini pork pie. He was having an animated conversation with the cat who had managed to steal a slice of pork pie! I was so tired, that I headed straight to bed leaving Robbie and the cat exchanging insults while enjoying their midnight feast. Next time, I will leave him stranded!

A Night To Remember!

Robbie is not very good at going to bed on time, he has good intentions but then he either falls asleep over his computer or something on the television catches his attention so he sits down to watch it and falls asleep. On Monday night he was supposed to be on his way to bed, but there was something on television that caught his attention and he sat down again. I settled down to sleep with more than my share of the duvet, Radio 4 for company and just for a change no train noises, railway stories or timetable enquiries. Most people count sheep to make themselves sleepy, but Robbie recites train timetables and routes. When he was watching his DVD the night before there was a clip of Euston Station in the 1970's and it included a brief look at the departures board. Robbie kept rewinding and freezing the picture because he wanted to check the routes and work out the journey times - sad! Perhaps that explains why I treat his occasional absence as a luxury.

I must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing I remember was being woken in the middle of the night by ghostly moaning accompanied by bumping and clattering noises. I was still half asleep and struggling to make sense of what I was hearing when I felt an incredibly heavy weight on my legs that made me want to cry out. Suddenly I was wide awake and the 'haunting' turned out to be Robbie coming to bed. He had fallen asleep downstairs and when he woke up he was in agony and could hardly move. He had half walked and half crawled to bed moaning all the way and when he got there he launched himself onto the bed from my side and landed on my legs. I think I must have expressed my feelings fairly clearly and I must have turned my back on him because I remember one other thing, he tapped me on the shoulder and asked me very politely if he could please have a little bit of the duvet.

Miracles will happen.......... 20.06.07

it was another late night again, but not due to me missing my train (yes I do occasionally miss a train...lol..), but due to OHLE problems between Long Buckby - Rugby with CT starting/terminating at Rugby, which only meant one thing... BUS REPLACEMENT! Its daunting enough catching a CT train let alone a CT replacement bus service as you never know what to expect! So as we as we arrived into Platform 6 at Rugby (the Up Bay Platform....also a new platform for me that I hadn't scratched before...LOL..) we all eagerly headed off towards the front of the station. To my surprise there was two coaches and one minibus, the minibus was for Long Buckby and the two coaches were for Northampton ONLY. Well to put it mildly I was AMAZED! CT do have a habit of doing things on the cheap so to have three different coaches was a miracle to sat the least! So at 18.31 we departed for Northampton and 40 minutes later... we arrived at Northampton.......it must have been fastest replacment coach I've ever been on!!!!

An Early Start 26.05.07

The demands of GCSE and A Level exams have restricted our holiday in Cornwall to one week this year, so I was determined that we should make the most of our time. I have never enjoyed the ‘pleasures’ of a packed motorway and Bristol is always a black spot as it seem to be the cone storage capital of UK. I decided that we would get everything ready on the Friday, go to bed early and then set off at 2am on Saturday morning.

Everything went more or less according to plan apart from a bit of procrastinating from Robbie in the morning. Believe it or not he had to ring control to check on the progress of his ‘empties’ at 2am! He wanted us to leave a bit later as he calculated that we would then have a chance of seeing one of his trains as we went along the motorway. He got his wish, as we didn’t set out until 3.15 am and I did indeed see a train as we travelled down the motorway, but Robbie (who intended to stay awake to keep an eye on me) was ‘Z’ing by the time we passed Oxford and he dozed all the way to Cornwall, so he missed it. He said it was the wrong train anyway. I also saw a fox cross the whole motorway, but everyone else was asleep and missed it. We had an excellent journey; we arrived at Padstow just after 8am having made one comfort stop on the way. That gave us plenty of time to explore all the shops and to enjoy brunch at one of our favourite restaurants.

Robbie and I headed for the little bookshop that we love, he was very restrained and only bought one book, but I bought two, A Pictorial Survey of Great Western Branch Lines and A Portrait of the Atlantic Coast Express. I was dragged away by Laura and Emily; they had been checking out the designer shops and wanted to ‘show me’ what they had found. They jointly purchased an Animal handbag which they intend to share, but both have their eyes on other clothing as well. Maybe we should have stayed at home! Sam bought a decision dice and a gruesome pen that defies description, but he has his sights on greater things too!

We got to the caravan by mid afternoon, it has been upgraded since last year and it is absolutely beautiful. By the time we were all installed and tidied up and the shopping had been fetched and packed away, I was exhausted. I went bed before Dr Who, leaving the ‘boys’ to enjoy the flat screen LCD TV.

A Walk on the Wild Side 21.05.07

I didn't see much of Robbie over the weekend, he spent Saturday on the wild side - in Walsall, and then on Sunday he went off to a gig in Birmingham in the evening and didn't get back until it was way past my bedtime. Then this morning all he could manage to talk about was chaos created by Central Trains cancelling services left, right and centre yesterday. Oddly enough at 6am I can't summon up too much interest in the disgraceful behaviour of Central Trains, in fact the only thing that interests me at that time is my first cup of tea of the day!
I couldn't even get away from railway news at work. I switched Radio 4 on just in time to hear Christian Wolmar pronounce that South West Trains decision to redefine peak times as contrary to common sense. It seems that peak time now extends to noon. I'm sure they keep that man in a cupboard on charge so that whenever the world railway is mentioned they can wheel him out to state the blindingly obvious!

This evening Robbie is sitting in the corner emitting strange tinny sounds - he is listening to Blood Red Shoes with his headphones on. I don't mind too much as long as he doesn't start to sing along! In fact I could do with some headphones myself, I have been bombarded with mind boggling questions this weekend. Sam tried to explain to me about the ageing effect of space travel, but it made my brain hurt. He said that if there were identical twins and one went into space while the other stayed behind, one would end up older than the other. Having thought about it, he must be right, I saw William Shatner on TV not so long ago and all that space travel has clearly taken its toll on him!

Busy Going Nowhere! 30.01.07

Robbie arrived at the station bright and early this morning, having had one of those rare mornings when everything goes as planned and there is no competition for the bathroom, lost phone or missing season ticket. But nothing is as straightforward as it appears, he got to the station with time to spare, and there he stayed. The previous train failed at Long Buckby, blocking the line, and Robbie rang me from an increasingly crowded and uncomfortable train still sitting at the station with the prospect of going nowhere fast! I am starting to think he must be jinxed, but it could be worse, at least he doesn't have to travel by F.G.W!!

Feeling Blue

The run up to Christmas was totally exhausting for us and we have enjoyed the gentler pace of the last few days. Having caught up on our sleep, we have been able to cope with a few late nights. Robbie is working his way through some of the new train dvd's he had for Christmas, last night we stayed up until past 2am watching old railway films. This inevitably led to waking up late and a lazy morning watching more railway stuff. We watched a film about Cornish branch lines, it was made in 1991 and it was interesting to see how things have changed since, as well as learning loads about the history of the railway in Cornwall. It is the area of the country that I know best and I have travelled on most of the branches, so the film was extra special. Robbie had to spoil it by being an anorak, sitting on the bed wearing nothing but a quail map and arguing with the narrator about the exact length of the various viaducts. Eventually he worked out that I was getting seriously irritated and he decided to preserve his health by being quiet, just as well really as he was in danger of wearing the dvd - internally!

Robbie is very helpful around the house, but occasionally his enthusiasm exceeds his skill. He has been getting on with the washing over the last few days, bless him. I should be grateful, but I was tempted to do a great deal more than bless him when I realised that he had turned my best white bra grey in the wash. He tried to claim it was 'blue white' but I am not that easily conned!! He will be shopping for underwear next week, he is quite good at that, he seems to enjoy lingering in the lingerie department! We are an odd pair, I hate clothes shopping, but he absolutely loves it.

Robbie has had a number of little mishaps in the last few days. To spare his blushes I will not go into detail, but much as I love him and enjoy spending time, I could do with a day off!! As soon as we go back to work I will be wishing it was the holidays again, but I suppose life is always like that.

Pendolino to Carlisle

We went on a Pendolino to Carlisle today - just there and back to make sure that it is still in the same place! We went to Milton Keynes to catch the Carlisle service, we go there for the comedy value, they have the campest station announcer ever. He is so entertaining, the children find him absolutely hilarious.

I quite like train travel because it gives me a chance to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes - people watching. While Robbie bought the hot drinks at Northampton the men at the ticket barrier caught my eye. The Silverlink uniform is uninspiring and with their long dark coats and the white bands around their caps, they looked rather like St Johns Ambulance personnel, but the lugubrious faces that this 'cheerful' pair possessed had a hint of the Gestapo about them.

At Milton Keynes the Virgin staff had their long winter coats on as they stood next to the departing trains. They looked very smart and just a little sinister - like German border guards. Virgin obviously try hard to ensure that their staff look smart, but from my observations shoe cleaning is a lost art in urgent need of revival! The employee on our platform was frighteningly young (another sign of my advancing age), in his somewhat large overcoat he reminded me of Paddington Bear, he looked so cute and vulnerable.

Our journey was interesting, I think I prefer Voyagers because they have nicer toilets, but pendolinos are quite nice. Our train manager's announcements were incredible, I didn't understand a word he said, but I have never met anyone who could manage as many words per minute before. May be someone had accidentally set him on fast forward. It is good to see that Virgin are doing their bit for diversity, our train crew was like the league of nations. The chap who served our breakfast was rather cute and he had a gorgeous South African accent. I lost Robbie on the train, he claimed it was an urgent trip to the toilet, but I wasn't born yesterday, we were near Crewe and he was in the vestibule doing a bit of cranking!

The train manager had a sex change at Preston and acquired an impenetrable Scottish accent. After a lot of beautiful countryside and regular time checks from Robbie as he traced the route on his Quail map, we arrived at Carlisle. It is an interesting little place, we had a look around for an hour or two. Unfortunately it seemed to be geriatric day, there were millions of them with their shopping trolleys, plodding around the shops with no sense of urgency whatsoever. We spotted one man wearing a kilt and a deerstalker hat, very scary! I was struck by the diversity of accents and the complete absence of manners - it was almost like being in France! I managed to keep Robbie out of Marks and Spencer's and as a reward I bought him a really nice book about GWR.

We had a pleasant journey back, Robbie started doing the speaking clock thing again, but I managed to distract him by explaining the reproductive arrangements for sheep. We saw a lot of sheep. Considering Robbie grew up in a rural area he doesn't know much. We enjoyed the day and I saw lots of interesting railway stuff, my favourite was a Class 37 DRS Tractor, it has a cute little face. I also saw some freight as it thundered through Milton Keynes, I am quite interested in freight trains.

Bungle, Bungle!

Robbie arrived home considerably later than planned yet again - due to the total incompetence of Central Trains who seem to have abandoned the pretence of customer service. I went out to rescue him from the station and was treated to one of his weirder 'did you knows'.

This time he asked me if I knew what the term Bungle Bungle meant. I said that it sounded like Rainbow meets the Wombles and for a moment I stunned him into silence. He then named all the characters from Rainbow - Zippy, George, Bungle, Geoffrey, Rod, Jane and Freddie! Another ponderous silence before the triumphant declaration that Womble in question was actually called Bungo not Bungle. I was happy to take refuge in TV land, but Robbie dragged me kicking and screaming back to the world of train planning.

Apparently the term ‘bungle bungle’ is used to replace numbers that are not yet available e.g. the number of a train service. I hope my brief approximation will satisfy any readers. The intricacies of this concept were explained to me in infinite detail in the car and then for another half hour or so just after midnight when we were in bed! I tried distraction but failed miserably, so I took the only course of action left open to me - I fell asleep!!!