Tag: London

July 3rd – As readers who follow me elsewhere will know, I have been extremely busy with work and other stuff in the last few weeks. Today was no exception and very heavy: I had an 2pm afternoon meeting near Eastbourne to attend, so I handballed my bike on the train, rode across London Village from Euston to Victoria, arrived at my destination – Polegate – and then took advantage of a great traffic free trail to arrive bang on time. 

In the early evening I returned, again crossing London, and got home near midnight.

I loved cycling in London – around Trafalgar Square, down the Mall – and I understand a lot more why the city has such a notorious cycling reputation: If you leave 3″ of space, there’s either a tourist, a taxi or a cement truck in there. You have to be assertive, attentive, and dare I say it aggressive.

But what a blast.

I have spent most of the weekend after knackered. Maybe I’m getting to old for this shit…

November 8th – Walsall Station at night has an odd, other-worldly atmosphere. The view from the ramp has always been great at night, but sadly diminished since the BOAK building in Station Street was lost to arson. It’s a horrid place to wait at – particularly for those on platform one, here waiting for the Rugeley train, as usual delayed by ten minutes.  London Midland, the embattled operator of the station, have talked about removing the staff here and leaving the station unstaffed at night. If they did, I think the service would see much less use – I, personally, would not feel safe. Good old London Midland.

October 23rd – The bleak weather continues. Thoroughly depressing commutes were lightened only by getting a decent train service for the first time in weeks. Despite the mass cancellations, I for once fell lucky and managed to get on 2 trains that were on time and 2 that were only a few minutes late. This may seem unremarkable, but the service has been so bad of late it’s been adding whole hours to my commuting time. As my train home rolled into Shenstone, I felt quite pleased, but noticed the announcement as I alighted that the following train was 15 minutes late. That one was set to be seriously overcrowded. The local rail system really is useless at the moment.

Shenstone Station, however, is still beautiful, even in the half-light of a miserable day.