This way

On Wednesday I am hoping to take a train from Maidstone West to St Pancras station in That London. Because I'm going early, I felt it wise to purchase my ticket in advance, so I headed into town to do that. At Maidstone West the ticket office was closed despite the web site saying that it would be open, so I looked at the ticket machine. I really couldn't find anything that would cover my needs - I want a ticket that includes high-speed routes and includes travel during the rush hour on Wednesday and returns on Saturday evening. Rather than faff around I decided to try Maidstone East, we have three stations in Maidstone, though Barracks is less than half a mile along the same track as Maidstone West. Barracks dates back to when Maidstone had a large garrison of infantry and cavalry. Now there is a much smaller garrison of Gurkha engineers at Invicta Park, and they are not reliant on rail travel.

Anyway, over to East I go - it's busiest station and has a big shiney new ticket office. This was open but I think I disturbed the chap from having a cup of tea because he didn't seem pleased to leave the back office when he saw me; it's that or I look like trouble. I explained my needs and a casual observer, seeing his reaction, might have thought that I'd asked for the moon on a piece of string. He frowned, sucked through his teeth and started stabbing buttons on his terminal. He finally came back with an off-peak return at £37.00 but when I checked that it covered early morning on Wednesday he scowled, screwed up the receipt that he'd already printed and went at the machine again. In the end I needed two tickets; an Anytime Day Single (outbound) and a Super Off-peak Day Single (to come home) - a total of £57 and a few pence. I'd never have sorted this on my own, I'm so glad that the government has seen sense and decided to keep ticket offices open.

I also had an errand in town and I grabbed this shot in the Fremlin Walk shopping arcade, it seems that much of it is boarded up while work is carried out.