A bad day to travel.

It's been a bit windy.

I was in Peterborough this morning. Seven o'clock train from York, hour down, bit of time for contingencies, start at nine, finish running my session by half eleven, back on the train at 12:21 and back in the office well before two. Or at least that's how it normally works.

Because of the winds, the trains had been put onto an "emergency timetable". For some reason, rather than this meaning that the same number of trains run, but just go a bit slower, instead what seems to happen is that half the trains are cancelled and the rest break down.

Going down was not too bad (half hour delay due to a broken down train in front at Grantham) but coming back was less of a happy journey. I got on the train at 12:30. Already nine minutes late but on time according to the emergency timetable. Then heading north the train seemed to go at normal speed but stop for half an hour before entering each station. I'd have coped with this. I'd still have been late back to York but not too badly.

Unfortunately, upon hitting Doncaster we had to vacate our National Express train and head over to another platform to join a Virgin. This might have been ok if a) the NX train had been not too full; b) the Virgin was bigger than the NX and c) the Virgin wasn't full either. But neither of those things was true and so it was all a bit busy.

And to make it worse, the reason for changing in the first place was that power lines were down north of Doncaster so we had to go back to York via Leeds. Which isn't particularly direct.

So overall my one hour journey took three and a quarter, and I made it to my desk to start the day's work at 4pm. Grrrr.

But hey, at least I've still got four nights or so before cider prices go up.