Thursday 10 May 2007

Very bad travel day

There were a lot of things wrong with yesterday. Not least the bit where it was nearly 8 o'clock by the time I was leaving the office.

The worst bit of all was the decision by transport in the south east of London to TOTALLY mess with me on my way home.

Exhibit 1 - Jubilee Line. When I arrived at Green Park the Jubilee Line was admitting to 'minor delays'. I was sceptical to whether or not they even knew what had caused the delays as there were different stories on the boards at platform and ticket hall and yet another story from the PA man. I had to wait 7 minutes until a train, which I squeezed onto as the next advertised train was another 7 minutes after that! We stopped and started and generally bumbled down the line to North Greenwich.

Exhibit 2 - Blackwall Tunnel. When I arrived at North Greenwich the PA man was advising of delays to ALL bus routes to and from North Greenwich station. He added to this the recommendation that customers seek alternative routes. There is a problem with that statement. If ALL the bus routes are delayed then the only alternative route is to hop back on the tube. The problem with that is that North Greenwich is in the middle of two stations which are on the OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER! Canning Town (and indeed West Ham and Stratford), on the north side of the Thames. Canary Wharf, also on the north side. If you want to go all the way back to Canada Water that is on the south side... but then you still have to get all the way back to Greenwich and then to Charlton!!!

So. I decided that I had better get on the 472 which had just drawn up as I couldn't see any other buses at all waiting at the stand. The 472 takes me as far as the 'low' road (Woolwich Road) and from thence I have to walk. I got off the bus (a stop early as it turned out) and walked home... which means going up the hill by the park and then all along my road (which is VERY long).

I couldn't even go shopping as planned as the tunnel problems had gridlocked the entire Greenwich peninsula and there was no way I was going to sit in traffic for half an hour just to get to the supermarket!

Crawled out of bed this morning exhausted after the exertions of yesterday. Got to work reasonably early to find that I wasn't the only one stressed out by their current workload as the Geordie and the South African were both already there!

Can't wait for the weekend really... although have a rather unbelievable (and some might say impossible) amount to accomplish before then!!!