Sprinting through St Pancras station in London, briefcase in hand and tie flapping out behind him, my boss Neil White was a man on a mission yesterday evening.
As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we’d spent the day in London for a conference. But it was also the boss’s 25th wedding anniversary, so he was buttoning up his jacket and eyeing the door as the final presentation had concluded.
“We’re off,” he hissed at me as the last slide flicked up onto the screen on the stage. “Come on, I want to get home to Mrs W.”
We’d been sat on the back row and, like a pair of naughty schoolchildren, we’d made a pretty good job of polishing off a load of Haribo sweets and fizzy drinks throughout the afternoon, so the initial sugar rush saw us making a successful exit from the meeting room, shaking hands and smiling while continuing to move our feet.
Then followed a series of farces, causing the boss’s face to turn an ever deeper shade of purple as he realised we were not going to make the 5.30pm train back to Derby.
Our initial escape from the conference was utterly thwarted by a bizarre revolving door which saw the boss getting completely stranded halfway through.
“Push the button,” he mouthed at me through the glass, as I waved with exasperation at a bored-looking security guard. He was eventually spat out onto the street, but then the damn thing seized up completely, trapping me inside the building while the boss danced about on the pavement gesturing at his watch.
We then enjoyed a lengthy wait for a train at Kensington High Street (which at least gave me time to swap my stilettos for a pair of pumps), followed by an extremely cosy rush hour tube ride. Extremely cosy. I believe I was accidently intimate with at least half a dozen complete strangers within the space of about three minutes in that carriage.
Puffing through St Pancras, it became apparent that we’d missed our train, and the boss’s romantic hopes of being home to see Mrs W at a reasonable time were fading fast.
But then.... “There is a god!” we shouted, staring at the departure board. At 5.45pm train heading back to Derby.... perfect!
Still buoyed by sugar, we ran across the platform and bagged ourselves some decent seats.
Pulling out of the station, we were feeling pretty smug, and the boss was pondering whether he’d have time to take Mrs W out for dinner, when the announcer came over the intercom system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 5.45pm service to Derby, calling at.........” and it then went on to name pretty much every single city, town or suburb between Derbyshire and the M25.
The boss and I looked at each other in horror. It was going to take us three-and-a-half hours to get home.
What then followed was hours of intense frustration as we chugged through the countryside, with the boss making repeated calls home, and me trying to calm him down.
“We actually RAN to catch this sodding train,” he exclaimed at one point, as a faster train (which had left St Pancras 20 minutes after us) powered past (due to arrive back in Derby about an hour before us).
We hatched a brilliant plan to get off at Leicester and jump onto a quicker train, which saw us bounding excitedly out onto the platform, dashing up to the departure board, realising that the faster service was cancelled and then running like fury to get back onto our original train before it deserted us.
Passing Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station for the first time was quite interesting because I’d never seen it before. Passing it for the second time 45 minutes later was downright frustrating.
And poor old Neil was also treated to passing his own house and his local pub twice because he lives along the train line.
Finally pulling into Derby station at about 9pm, we’d both reached the end of our tether.
But at least the boss knew he’d have some tea waiting for him when he got home. I was heading round to Anna’s house, and thanks to the supermarket ban my food options were limited.
I started the car and Travis’s ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me’ blasted out through the radio, causing me to swear colourfully and with gusto.
I ended up in Premier Foods convenience store, just round the corner from Anna’s house, looking for something quick and easy to chuck in her oven. Morrisons, which is just round the corner, was open until 10pm, but clearly that was out of bounds.
There’s not a lot of choice for a vegetarian in your average convenience store, so I ended up with a miserable-looking margarita pizza. A pretty unhealthy end to a day filled with Kitkats, crisps and sweets.
As I was paying I spotted a chocolate Thornton’s Father Christmas nestled amongst some boxes of Malteazers on a shelf behind the shopkeeper.
“Christmas is coming early this year,” he said when I asked what Santa was doing there.
“Nah, only joking love,” he admitted. “It’s from last Christmas. I just keep it there because it makes the place look festive.”
Okaaaaaaaaay.
I ended up eating the pizza on my knee while watching telly at about 10.30pm, then heading straight to bed - a stodge-fest which meant I woke up feeling like I’d swallowed a football this morning. A quick trip to Morrisons could have avoided that.
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