Trains and rains

I travelled and arrived in shorts, as it is theoretically summer in the UK. I then noticed that headlines were alerting readers to such treats as ‘parts of country may get up to month of rain on Friday’. In Leek, Staffordshire, where my sister works, two inches fell.

Along with complicated trains, familiar August white cloud syndrome and more reports of society straining under the current government (the latest regarding drug deaths at the highest level since records began) and overnight travel fatigue, the spirits were not high upon arrival. Thanks must go to the genial traveller next to me who had been holidaying in New Zealand and showed me lots of exciting pictures of scenery.

I ventured to Euston Station as before I hit the office in Cambridge I’m heading to the motherland of Staffordshire for an old friend’s wedding and some family time. Some chaos with the trains awaited me. Apart from my first ever trip to London in 1994 when my dad bought me a bag of gobstoppers and we watched Arsenal beat Ipswich 4-1, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Euston functioning well. I sat out the delays with coffee on the concourse.

I eventually reached Staffs and entered a semi-comatose state after a night of overnight travel and no sleep. I held it together long enough to join the family for pub grub in the evening, and then crashed.