Travel disruption

I, more-or-less, failed to adopt the glasses habit for a second day. It takes time to build habits.

PY decided to work from home. A lot SouthEastern’s trains were disrupted. News from The Island was that power to Ryde Pier had been lost and the FastCat was suspended. Then it was running. I had the live feed of the Solent on one screen for a lot of the day. Things were running OK.

In Raynes Park the storm didn’t seem so bad. There was some rain but the tumultuous weather that I had been expected didn’t materialise. Monitoring the trains and we could see disruption on the route we need but the trains were still running. We only made the decision at the very last moment to go.

When we arrived at Waterloo things looked OK but soon an increasing number of trains were coming up as delayed. There was an ever-growing crowd stood around the departure screens trying to figure out if their train was running and where it would be leaving from. Our 7:30pm train was about 15 minutes late leaving; departing with only five of the promised ten coaches. That was better than many people experienced. Like a lot of people, we’d believed the signs that promised a longer train so we shuffled back along the platform as the train arrived. We had to stand to Guildford when a couple of seats became available. Not the most comfortable journey south and increasing delays compressed the wait at Portsmouth Harbour for the FastCat from about thirty minutes to five. The crossing was a bit busier than I expected for the 21:45 departure. It was quite bumpy but not the worst I’ve been on.

Today’s first Christmas ad: Waitrose with Graham Norton.