Brighton to London, eventually
Being from Essex, but at uni down in Brighton, and sans driving licence, I've come to be quite familiar with the trains between the two cities, so much so that I don't need to check the national rail journey planner any more.

First mistake

On the Saturday before the Easter Holdays, I arrive at Falmer Station, bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8 am, to find that there are engineering works on the main line.
I have three choices
a) train to town, bus to gatwick, stopping at three bridges, haywards heath et al and train to London Bridge

b) train to town, train to Chichester, train to Victoria (or more likely, train to Redhill or Reigate, then train to Victoria)

c train one stop to Lewes, fast train to Ashford, train to London bridge

As I had an army surplus burgen full to bursting, and a laptop case with laptop, compact desctop and plenty of coursework (although not that much as I study chemistry)
i feel that a bus, or unnecessary walklng (ie going across the footbridge) is out of the question, I opt for Ashford.

Second Mistake

En route, i have another look at the map, and decide that St Leonards might be a better choice to change at. I disembark and...45 minutes til the next train, and its a stopping service. When it arrives, I board and soon realised that I've sat near the nutter.

Now I'm quite a nice guy, JWs will not be told were to shove their watchtower and parliamentary candidates will not be informed that i think they're a party droid parachuted into a safe seat, and that i hope the greens give her a right royal black eye nex may or whenever.

So an hour and a half with, mabey nutter wa unfair, but she was talkative and annouing (she was also old and with a baby in a pushchair , so none of that). Thwe conversation proceeds, inbetween her trying to get the ticket inspector to let her off a fine as she dropped her handbag and lost the ticket (and return ticket to Glasgow) at Hastings, feeding the bairn, and hanging out of the door for a fag at every station.

Turns out she was staying at a freinds house friends house before returning to scotland and and was headed for aldgate east, being the nice guy i am, i tell her that her best bet is to get the northen line to bank/monument and the the district line. As I was hungry and the conversation had gone in the direction of "I'm no racialist, but..." somewhere around New Cross Gate, I popped to Borough market for lunch.* What do i find, the northern line and the jubilee line are out for engineering works, not only have i sent Scottish lady on a wild goose chase, but I'm now buggered

third mistake

so, with a metric fuckton of my posessions digging into my shoulders, inlcuding computer gear worth about £1500, i set of for London Bridge and then Fenchurch Street. Now I grew up thinking that "South of the River" was a foreigh country. ** which bacically means i wandered through what may or may not have been Bermondsey until I find Tower bridge instead.

fouth mistake

My Mother used to work in a bank in the city, from leaving school at fifteen with no O levels untill sprogging my older sister 15 years later. She can organise a day up london for a easily borable small boy, plus frieds on occasions and only have to pay for food and travelcards. so I know my way around central London fairly well (apart from that strange land on the wrong side of the river). However, instead of turning left at the norther end of the bridge, i go right and end up wandering through st Katherine's dock, silently fuming at my own specialness and wanting to blow up all these rich fuckers' boats. althogh as aplus point i stumbled across the awesome Battle of Cable Street mural, www.eastendtalking.org.uk/OurHistory/CableStreet/images/mural/CableStreetMural.htm

Anthoo, i eventually arrive, at Aldgate East of all places! Fortunately, she's nowhere to be seen and i head off for home

On arriving and recanting my tale of woe I'm chirpily informed "you should have called, we went to bluewater today, so I could've picked you up from Ashford."
bother said Pooh.

muchos apologies for length , and shameless advertising

*Maria's market Cafe, lovely steak and muchroom baps, nom nom

** this is actually true, when my Nan took me up London when I was about 6, I thought the Greenwich foot tunnel went to Ireland, despite the fact that Island Gardens is very much north of the river. then again, i thought my aunt and uncle from Swindon were Swedish.
(Josef Smilin' a seagull crashed into the window as i was pooing!, Sat 31 May 2008, 10:26, 1 reply)

It's a pain I know only too well...
I'm originally from Essex and go to Sussex uni, I must have made that journey lugging a rucksack the size of Switzerland about a hundred times. Disaster often strikes when I'm completely skint and have to head home for a free dinner and cash injection from the bank of Mum and Dad - I've got into the nasty habit of only having enough money left for a ticket to Gatwick, then having to bunk the train to some random station 'saahf of the rivah' where there's no ticket barriers to impede my progress. Two or three times now I've found myself wandering around Brixton or Loughborough road in the middle of the night with a bag full of laptop and ipod trying desperately not to look like a middle-class indie kid student while I search for some sort of bus or tube stop to get me back to the safe zone of the central line. Bloody horrible, and terrifying to boot.
(jabboy, Tue 3 Jun 2008, 20:21, closed)