retiredmartin

November 2023. Blackfriars Bridge.

One good thing about Waterbeach is that there’s a fast train into London every half hour so I could realistically visit my father-in-law and Mrs RM in Tunbridge Wells hospital.

2 hours by train isn’t much longer than the drive on a good day, and of course you save the parking hassle and can have a beer in London on the way back.

And you get to admire the sun over St John the Evangelist,

on the way to Waterbeach’s extended platform, though the real drama was 5 miles up the line where the Great Northern service had decided to conk out. The Great Northern twitter account, basically just a log of unexpected delays and exasperated customers, kindly gave us a little diagram showing the offended item (5E09) circled in red.

The British Blitz spirit kicked in as I compared notes with a lad from Gravesend and a family from Cottenham as we discussed bus options (don’t bother), shared taxis (ditto) and compensation.

If Great Northern ran their trains as well as their compensation scheme they’d be fine.

But then 5E09 mysteriously disappeared, perhaps it’s part of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary episodes, and we were off to St Pancras, only my tentative plan of a Spoons breakfast pint dashed.

The highlight of any cross-London rail trip is the halt on Blackfriars Bridge.

the sweeping view from St Pauls to Southwark that blew me away on a Monday morning 25 years ago this month returning from an NHS assignment in Zimbabwe (the one where I stumbled into Mugabe’s Presidential Palace looking for the cricket ground).

As in life, the best things in London are free, or at least cost less than £7.

Like the Leon Shakshuka at London Bridge,

and my next pint in Bermondsey.

Meanwhile, the NHS that continues to look after Michael and many others remains priceless.