The best-laid plans

Today was supposed to be a day in Brighton, but the 12pm train stopped at Purley, and didn't move...10, 20, 30, 45 minutes passed. The crowd of 20-somethings in our carriage began to get agitated and had travelled down the carriages to find alcohol. Fred and I bailed out, not wanting to be with this crowd. There were no trains going south so we hopped onto one going to Forest Hill. I was so disappointed not to see Jason and Jenny, but there wasn't any way I could have made it down. As it turned out, normal train services didn't resume until around 6pm. A man had been struck by a Gatwick Express train (the fastest train on the line) at Merstham and had died immediately. The railway had had to cut the power to the lines. I am always amazed at how people consider their inconvenience above the fact that someone has been killed on the line. I assume it was a suicide, but I don't know that for sure. It's so, so sad, and it happens all too often in the capital, annoying rather than saddening huge amounts of people. It's as if these nameless fatalities become something like a power failure or a broken-down train rather than individuals who have felt so low that they walk in front of a powerful, unstoppable piece of machinery.

Ao, back to Forest Hill, and we walked up to the Horniman Museum to walk in the gardens and save something of the day.