The Horrors of Travel

 

Luke is amazing and seeing him and his family was terrific, whatever the circumstances.  And that's about as much as I'm going to say about that.*

            Now I am going to talk about the Horrors of Travel.**

            I had carefully looked up train schedules between Mauncester and Okefenokee on National Rail's web site.  And then Aaron, who was going to be picking us up at the station, phoned to ask if we could get off at Blackguard Junction, which is where they're staying, a few miles outside the swamp itself and more convenient because you don't need special canoeing licenses and all that.***  I (carefully) looked up Blackguard Junction and said† yes, fine, it's on the same line.

            This morning Peter and I got to the train station in lots of time.  I parked lovely Wolfgang and strolled to the ticket office, feeling nearly light-hearted, where Peter had been wresting tickets out of the system.  We change at Barnstorming, said Peter.  We what? I said.  I hate changing trains.  They're never where they're supposed to be, and they arrive, leave and are cancelled randomly.††  And beware any rail personnel who answer questions too decisively.

            You know those great sheets of schedules laminated to the walls of train stations?  At bigger train stations—this includes Mauncester—they hang on a rack and you flip through them like looking at posters in a museum shop.  Blackguard Junction did not appear.  Anywhere.  Branch line into the Twilight Zone.  My favourite.  Joy.

            The train left Mauncester at the time I was actually expecting it to leave which was insufficiently comforting.  I immediately got out Apocalypse and started trying to find out††† whether getting off at Barnstorming was going to have the desired effect of providing us with a train that would take us on to Blackguard.  According to National Rail it would.  National Rail furthermore gave me times for these longed-for things to happen.

            Then we arrived at the wrong time and on the wrong platform.  And those horrible flickering departure/arrival screens—except in really big stations like Waterloo—only give you terminus names:  the next train at that platform usually has a ribbon of its stops running underneath it, but by that time if you're on the wrong platform it's probably too late.  I had no frelling idea what the final stop on the Blackguard line was.  Shangri-La West?

            In this case we were lucky.  There was an Official Rail Person wearing Official Rail Person insignia who told us we were on the right platform and the right train would be there in three minutes.  And it was.  Never mind that it had nothing to with the time the National Rail site had given me.  Never mind.  We got to Blackguard!!!!  We got off the train!!!!! . . . And Apocalypse immediately started barking at me, because Aaron was waiting at the wrong platform, having been helpfully directed there by the Official Rail Person he had asked for the train coming in from Barnstorming, and had applied 21st century technology to the problem.

            NEVER MIND.  THE POINT IS WE GOT THERE.‡   AND AARON WAS THERE TO MEET US.‡‡

            We were driven back to the train station this evening in teeming rain.  Teeming rain is always a bad sign when you're travelling.  Even when nobody drowns it's a bad omen.  We got there with about two minutes to spare—well, maybe, because we were back to believing that pesky web site again—and were (helpfully) directed to Platform 2 for Barnstorming.  We raced up the stairs that said Platform 2 . . .

            . . . and there was no Platform 2.  There was a Platform 1, and Platforms 4 and 5, and across the rails we could see a Platform 3.

            There was no Platform 2.

            Nor were there any Official Rail Personnel.

            I accosted an ordinary human who was standing in the middle of the empty stretch of what might, conceivably, have been Platform 2, not that there were any signs to this effect.  He looked amused.  He said, yes, this was Platform 2.  I applied myself to the Nasty Flickering Overhead Arrival/Departure Screen.  It said:  Next train:  Venous Baroque.  And it did not have a ribbon of station stops running under it.  I've never heard of Venous Baroque. 

            The train came in.  We got on it.  It took us to Barnstorming.  We got off.

            The train to Venous Baroque stops at Barnstorming at Platform 1,002.  It's a long way to the Travel Advice Desk—and there was nothing on our way but some handers-out of leaflets for local gyms, furniture warehouses, and really great deals on flights to Goa.  At, for example, Clapham Junction, which is a terrifying station, if you keep your nerve, it's pretty well labelled, and you can probably find what you're looking for before the nervous breakdown, even in the absence of Official Rail Personnel in preference for the handers-out of leaflets.  Barnstorming was clearly designed and built by an alien race who do not have human best interests at heart, or at carapace, or whatever evil train-station-builders have.  Then you finally get to Barnstorming's Travel Advice Desk . . . and it's on the far side of the ticket-eating barrier, so if you go through you won't be able to come back, and, furthermore, it's closed, so you might as well keep your ticket, useless as it is, since you have no idea where your train is.  There was a woman in Official Rail Personnel uniform leaning on the ticket-eating barrier, having a good old jaw with a woman not in Official Rail Personnel uniform.  They were laughing.  They were having a good time.  Peter and I were not.  I said to the ORP uniform woman, pardon me, how do I find out where my train is?  And she said to me crisply, I am helping this woman.  I'll be with you when I'm finished. 

            Well excuse me for living, and for wanting to catch my train.

            At this point a young man also in ORP uniform strode up, inquired what train we wanted, and said, with absolute conviction, Mauncester!  Platform 1,001!

            So we toiled back out to the end of the frelling platforms, dodging more leafleters.  And we got to Platform 1,001 and the FRELLING OVERHEAD SCREEN was listing more towns neither of us had ever heard of.  When we're somewhere else and heading back toward Mauncester, the terminal stations ought to sound relatively familiar.  We both started looking around for someone else to ask.  I wandered across the platform to look down the other side, partly because a train had pulled in and a lot of people had got off, which should mean there were Station Personnel congregating, eager to be helpful and decisive.  And I happened to look at the frelling overhead screen for Platform 999, just out of mild curiosity about where this train might be headed, and it said . . . Dastardly.

            Dastardly?  That's one of the places Mauncester trains tend to end up!  I rushed up to a Station Person.  Does this train go to Mauncester? I shrieked.  Yes, he said. 

            They're already shutting the doors.

            I turn around again . . . AND PETER HAS DISAPPEARED.

            How far can he have gotten in less than twenty seconds?  NOOOOOOOOO.  I start racing up and down both 999 and 1,001—which, I have to tell you, with this knapsack, was not easy—and screaming PETER!!!!!!! which usually works a treat, because he's British, and he will commit feats of incredible speed and superhuman daring to make me shut up.  One of the other Station Personnel was beginning to take an interest.  I daresay to become an Official Rail Person you have to take special seminars in the treatment of hysterical madwomen.  This is our train! I said, and I may have been in tears by that point.  And my husband has disappeared!

            And the Official Rail Person held the train.  And calmly asked for Peter's name, and read it out over the PA system, and . . .

            We got on the train.  It took us to Mauncester.  We got off.

            I am a nervous wreck.

             The hellhounds had eaten lunch for the dog minder.  And they ate dinner for me.

            And I am never going anywhere again.‡‡‡ 

* * *

 * Except that I hope we see them again sooner this time.

 ** Jodi, if you're reading this, stop now.

 *** http://www.okefenokee.com/

I've told you before, southern England is a very strange place, reality-wise. 

 † Actually I texted.^  On Aaron's request.^^  Trembling in every limb, since texting isn't in my skill set.  It is now.  I am so 21st century.

 ^ Which I swear is not a verb. 

^^ Connections are a little flaky near the swamp.  All those tentacles.  Does something to the air waves. 

†† I realise that the schedulers must do this deliberately.  There is no way mere fortuity could screw things up this spectacularly.  What I don't understand is why.  Wouldn't a system that, you know, worked, be easier to design? 

††† Slowly.  Dear gods.  I have never seen anything load so slowly.  And repeatedly.  And every time it reloaded I was back on the homepage and had to go to the 'schedules' page again and retype my station names . . . whereupon we would have to start over.  The only thing moving quickly during all of this were the waving fronds of little bars telling me how much signal my server was picking up:  FOUR HUNDRED AND TWELVE—TWO POINT SIX—ZERO—NINETY SIX MILLION!!!! TYPE FAST!!!!! 

‡ I had brought three books and my laptop, and none of them had come out of my knapsack.  It would be better on the way back, right? 

‡‡ Several minutes early, because he had believed the National Rail web site nonsense that I'd sent him. 

‡‡‡ Probably.