Ticket to ride

Modern travel, how we love it, how we love to complain about it. The weather, we love to complain about that too. Put the two together and we go into meltdown.
For the last few months rail services to London have been less than efficient, it’s been a downright disgrace and I say this as an infrequent user. Were I still a commuter, heaven forbid, I would have given up. I know that it is an urban myth that Mussolini made Italian trains run on time, but surely it is time for someone to bring in the “big guns”.
Then we had a mini heatwave. Moan, moan, moan we all went when it poured with rain and then moan again when it tipped into the thirties and we started to boil alive.

I had so much sympathy for my commuting friends but less for the moaning Minnies who are afraid of a bit of sun. Put on a hat I say and slip slap slop the factor 50 on your pale and tender parts.
Then I suffered the effects of the two together, a train journey in soaring heat. Now that really is a bitch.
I booked my tickets well in advance to get not only the best benefit from my Senior Railcard but also to have booked and numbered seats both ways. I’m not standing for nearly five hours for anyone these days and certainly not in an un-airconditioned carriage in a heatwave.
The outward journey was fine, not too hot and my booked seats were properly marked. The return was a very different and sad story. Dragging my luggage into the designated carriage was hard enough but then to discover that the booking vouchers had not been posted on the numbered seats was a nightmare. Of course there was someone already in my allotted seat and was there a train official there to sort things out? Guards! Guards? Was there bunkum!
I did find a seat in the end, and spent a very hot and cramped journey wondering where the train guard was and what they were actually doing. In hiding perhaps?