Rant 12: WORST. TRAIN. JOURNEY. EVER!

Howdy people and welcome to another instalment in my blogging rants. It’s been a while with since the last rant and things have been good for a while, but yesterday I experienced what can only be described as the worst train journey in existence. So now I’m gonna regale my story to you today.

Waiting for trains is a pain in the ass, but being stuck on one is even worst.

So yeah yesterday my sister and I were meant to head off to London to meet my uncle in London and watch Man of Steel with hid friends and my cousins. We caught out our train after 6pm and we were on-route, however after we got to St. Albans the train driver said that our train was gonna be delayed due to signalling problems at St. Pancras and since there were a few trains ahead of us we couldn’t move until we got the go ahead from the St. Pancras to move forward. To say that I was annoyed was an understatement, but I thought we’d get out of this just around time… Oh how wrong I was.

So yeah the train eventually started moving again but then stop at another station and the train driver stated that again due to signalling problems and the trains ahead of us we had to stop again. He apologized again and said that when he’d get new information he’d let us know. Me and my sister were pissed off. I was still living in hope… Until it happened another THREE TIMES! We only moved ahead one station at a time and with every minute that went by it got closer and closer to that screening time for Man of Steel. Sitting there on the train with no way to tell when you’re gonna move or not was horrible and was slowly driving me insane.

Eventually by the time it got to around 7.45pm I just decided to give up on the film. Me and my sister live by a serious code of conduct when it comes to watching films in the cinema. Basically we never like to get a cinema screening late, EVER and be bash people who do come in late. We never want to fall in that trap. So after a lot of debate, since we’d seen the film already we chose to go to Camden Town and eat instead and catch up with my uncle later on.

In the end we got into St. Pancras around 8pm and I just thought that it wouldn’t be worth us trying to rush over only to show up over half an hour into the film. So yeah not even worth the effort.

Now granted if we had left earlier like my sister had wanted then we wouldn’t have been in that situation, but there’s no way I could have foreseen that load of bullshit. Train delays have always been troublesome but I’ve never experienced them until yesterday and holy crap does it suck, especially when you’re stuck on the train and have no means of escape.

After yesterday I know to NEVER take chances with the train service ever again! RANT OVER! XD

 

Snow. Again. In April!

It had to be seen to be believed. But by now most of you who live in the UK would have seen it anyway. Snow. It’s an element of weather that never knows when to stop and seems to come back at the most random and inconvenient times in the year.

Snow. Although it’s nice to look at and adds that extra something at Christmas time, ultimately it is a frustrating element of weather that causes problems and chaos.

So yeah I guess it all started yesterday morning while I was back in Sheffield. After a night out with my friends when we had to run back to their accommodation, we all chilled inside for a bit until around 4 o’clock in the morning when we decided to head home. As we opened the door to head outside we saw it… The snow!!! And I was like “Not again!” and my friend was like “Snow? In April!?!” We were all completely dumbfounded and I was just completely gutted that not only had the snow returned after around 2 months, but I had to run back to my flat in this snow! So that’s what I did and it was horrible, cold, windy and wet. The next morning I heard about the snow disruption on the news on the radio, I got up around 9-9:30am an looked outside and it was still snowing! It was insane! Luckily it wasn’t snowing when I had to head out to the train station, but it was still raining and that sucked. By the time the train had come into Sheffield train station, the snow had picked up again. So on my way down from Sheffield to Leicester on the train I saw some ridiculous amounts of snow all over the landscapes and towns that I passed by. Though after I passed through Derby, the snow disappeared and the towns and fields that I saw looked normal. Then by the time we had gotten close to Bedford it was like I had teleported through a wormhole into another dimension, there was blue skies, clouds and sunshine. It was a complete contrast to what I had seen a few hours ago.

When I got back to my hometown of Luton things looked normal, cloudy, windy and a tad chilly, but otherwise same old weather by southern standards. By the time I got home and watched the news on TV I had found out that the whole of the north and Midlands got snow thrown at them from the heavens. Later on that day I had hanged with my college friend and her mates and we had some fun as I readjusted to life back in my hometown. After our hang time was over I went to see one of my mates off as she waited for her train and while waiting there, we got talking to the people waiting for the bus also and they said that the snow is predicted for today and I was fearing the worst in my head. So then I headed off home a little while later and I saw on the news that snow was meant to be coming, but it was more up north than down here in the south which was a good sign for me. In the end I thought I had seen the end of snow back in February and after all this nice weather I didn’t think it was gonna show up again until November. But as with most cases of UK-based weather, it is unpredictable, unreasonable and always in a state of flux. I just hope that this snow is a passing thing and doesn’t plan to stay or heaven help our futures…

 

Rant 04: I’m Tired of Cold Weather!

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the fourth instalment of my rant-based blog posts. Today I shall be talking about that thing I think most people hate, winter season weather. Now don’t get me wrong, a little variety in terms of weather can be nice from time to time, but most times the winter season brings some of the worst weather from snow to continuous rainy days that go on forever and that make this time of year impossible to do anything fun outdoors. Sure you can just chill inside on those rainy days and it isn’t all that bad sometimes, but for me I like to go outside or sometimes its mandatory like when I go to university or have to go to the shops or go to the cinema or go out partying with me mates and this type of weather doesn’t help. It sucks!

As fun as the cold weather can be, it can be a troublesome son of a handbag and outlive its welcome…

Most of the time the winter season kicks in around November and continues until around March/April and then by that point there’s a normality that kicks in around May. But I swear its like the cold, wet, snowy days are on the increase and their duration over the course of the year is extending, it never want to leave! While this type of weather is typical of this time of year, it seriously is not helpful and is in a continuous state of shift, some days the sky can’t decide weather it wants rain to fall or gives a blue sky with epically cold winter winds or give us snow in varying amounts, never consistent and completely unpredictable which is not helpful for those us who have places to go or have predetermined plans that get messed up because of the state of weather outside. And when it comes to teenagers and most young adults who love to go out and party or just socialize in general it doesn’t do us any favours, rain makes hanging out outside next to impossible because the amount of places to hang is limited to mainly indoor places or in some worse case scenarios people won’t come out because they don’t want to get wet, period. And I haven’t even gotten into talking about the aspects of cold weather that normally makes sure that most people will never leave the warmth of their houses or how snow is only good for snowball fights, photography & sledging and then it just get boring. So in the end we can’t win, winter weather tends to cripple us to our most fragile forms where options are limited and times are no longer fun.

Rain, while its nice to have sometimes, in the winter season it’s just terrible and a little depressing.

I know there’s some people who love cold weather and the winter season overall, kids don’t know any better so they get a kick out of it on most occasions, but after you grow up and the troubles of the real world kick in, you realise how troublesome this rain/snow can be. Rain just causes most people to stay inside or walk through it in slow motion as they get drenched. And did I mention how depressing rain can be? Yes, from a lot of the people I’ve talked to rain tends to bring your feelings down a good few levels, times just seem a lot worse off or just boring when rain is added to the mix and that’s never good for a university student. And when it comes to snow, well, I’ve already mentioned my issues with snow and the troubles its given me but let’s recap; its cold, bad for travelling in any way, shape or form and it gives drunk people ammunition to attack you or the windows of your flat/house and that isn’t very helpful at all.

And since coming to uni this kind of weather seems to have made my life feel a lot worse for some reason, in addition to this part of the year being fairly boring and uninspired we also have to put up with the constant amounts of rain and snow that prevent our joyful times outside from happening or make nights out that much more awkward or complicated by the level of cold weather. While you can dress appropriately for the weather conditions, it is a task to have to bring an extra layer of clothing with you that you have to put away in the coat room or have to carry around with you for the majority of the night. As I said before, task. Very tedious indeed. Even now I look outside and it looks so dreadful outside, so dull, so troublesome and that’s nearly everyday for me, it’s so lame! Frigging hell I can’t wait for the summer time to kick in, all of those days of full-on sunshine, warm weather and chill sessions outside taking in the outside world and having early morning cups of coffee and what nots. Anywho time to end this rant before I blow up, until next time people. Laters!

 

My terrible episode with train transportation

It’s funny, in all time that I’ve been travelling on trains whether it be to London, Sheffield or anywhere else I can honestly say that I have never had a bad experience. Sure there have been delays or travel diversions on the London Underground when travelling to the London MCM Expo with my friends, but there has never been anything that has ever gotten under my skin, angered me and depressed me before… That was until yesterday. Yesterday was meant to be a simple trip from Sheffield to Luton, nothing overly complicated, I had planned everything out days before and even though I had pay extra for the train on the day, I had everything in hand. However from the time I left the flat at my accommodation the first time everything went wrong.

This was just meant to be a routine trip back home, but it blatantly didn’t work out the way I wanted…

So after waking up in a very slow fashion after a massive night out, I was up and ready, though I did mess around on YouTube for a bit. I think I may have watched too much stuff as I had forgotten to look at the clock lol. Basically I had to be on the train at 14:27, I wanted to get to the train station at 14:00 and it was 13:45! I started to panic, I through my stuff together and rushed around. I had to reorganize my suitcase twice and then I finally got out and was on my way to the station however I had left the most quintessential item at home, my rail card. So then I had to throw my suitcase in a bush next to a tree and run back to my flat, nab the rail card and then run back to get my suitcase. I eventually got to the station just before the train was gonna leave, but I didn’t get the ticket in time so I had to wait for the next one at 14:47. Weak!

The next train did eventually come on time and I was en-route… However, there was an announcement on the train saying that the train was faulty, something to do with the doors not functioning properly so then we had to get off at Derby and switch trains. Holy man was I pissed off. So then I had to take my heavy-ass bag and suitcase from one train to the next and then I was finally one my way to Leicester like I was supposed to be. I then got off and tried to look at the nearest indicator to find out when the next train would be heading to Luton, but it wasn’t working. So then I had to run to another platform and check the indicator there which said the next train for London St. Pancras was at 15:25, but when I looked on that platform it said that the trains was calling at London St. Pancras only and I was thinking “That is so unfair!” So then I ran up to a guy at the ticket office and he said that the next train heading for Luton was the one I just looked at, so me thinking that the ticket man was right I went back to the platform and waited around 20 minutes for the train to show up. So then it eventually showed up and I hopped on, sat down and hoped for the best. However when the ticket inspector told me that my ticket was not only invalid but that the train was going to London St. Pancras only, my heart soon sank into a sea of disappear.

So then she told me that she’d write something down on my ticket that would allow me to get over the barriers at London and should still allow me to get back home too. So I thought I should trust her, but I was still gutted that I had to travel all the way to London to get back to Luton. So then I arrive in London St. Pancras around 17:30 and approach the barrier with my ticket. I check the train times and I see the next train home was heading off at 18:00. So when I tried to get over the barriers to the train when it started boarding I couldn’t get on because the woman at the barriers told me that my ticket was invalid. But then I told her my situation, that I was given false information by the ticket man at Leicester and the other stuff, but she wasn’t having it and told me to get another ticket. So there I was in the most frustrated mood in the history life, I swear I was ready to blow up. I’m so glad I had my music to keep me going through all that, it kept me clam, kept me focused and provided me with some good tunes. So I went down, got me ticket, came back up and then finally got through the barriers and onto the train. I just sat down and sighed in sadness that it had taken so long to get to a position where I was getting home after running around for 3 hours. After a quick call with my mum, I just put my headphones back in my ears and just let the train take me away.

And then out of nowhere some guy I was sitting next to asked me if I wanted a beer, I thought he was joking but he said he had one too many, so I accepted. It was the highlight of my day, and best thing that happened to me all day. So there I was chilling with a beer on the train, I was tired, frustrated, but at least I had beer haha. 🙂 So then after 15 minutes I finally got back into Luton. Finally back to my home town after 4 hours travelling around on trains with heavy luggage. Holy man it was lengthy.

So with the end of that story I came to this conclusion, that trains aren’t always consistent and websites aren’t always reliable and neither are people. I know a lot of the problems with Saturday began with me, with my reliance on the National Rail website and their inconsistent information on train times and then the forgetting of my rail card. But then there were problems that came from having to change trains because of faulty electrics, ticket men giving out false information and horrible people at the barriers not understanding the problems that everyday people like me go through. Oh good gravy I suffer so. 😦 Why is it that every once in a while I have to go through such horrible episodes in my life. It has made me very wary for the future in terms travelling and other things of that nature.