It’s been a long day – that is, I suppose the day was as long as it usually is, but it felt rather more so.

Russell had arranged to call on a friend in West Hampstead, who wanted to consult him about her collection of porcelain.  While he was in London, he thought he’d call on another friend in West Kensington.  I looked up how to get there, and from one place to another – and decided I’d better go with him.  Navigation isn’t his strong point any more and he’s never been entirely careful – he’d have to start by getting on a Metropolitan line rather than a Circle line train, which share the same track until they don’t any longer, at which time you have to get off, get a return train until you can mend your ways – oh yes, I’ve done this sort of thing too. And of course he could cope, I’m just protective because I’m a worrier.

We arrived at the station in good time, because I’ve been delayed on the road before now and missed my train by a whisker, got coffee and a toasted teacake for R and settled in the waiting room.  Five minutes before our train was due in, we went out – and the train was there.  Except it was the 9.17 train from Norwich and we were expecting the 9.47.  Turned out that there had been a fatality on the line at Brentwood some time earlier and the East Angularian line to Liverpool Street was buggered as a result.  We got on and after ten minutes the train set off.

The cautious announcement was that they did not yet know how far the train would go or how long the journey would take.  Some people had been on the train for an hour by now, having left Norwich at 9 o’clock.  At one stage, they said the train would terminate at Stratford (where there’s an underground and an overground line) but later they decided to press on to Liverpool Street.

Weeza has always said that most railway suicides happen on Monday or Friday, depending on whether it’s work or home life that’s most miserable.  At least the jumper has missed this week’s Tube strikes.  Who’d be a commuter, hey?

Anyway, all went well after that, though we had to be brisk.  R is dealing with the sale of the china and we’ll go down next week by car to fetch it.  We had to apologise to the other friend, who was all ready for a cup of tea and a chat, that we couldn’t spare long and it was jolly lucky that we allowed an hour to get back to the station, as we were on the train with less than five minutes to spare.  And Russell kindly said that he couldn’t have managed without me.

Ben’s former owner came in during the day to let him out into the annexe garden, which was very kind of her. And R poured me a glass of wine while I cooked a hasty meal, based quite heavily on some of the gammon left from the joint I cooked on Saturday.

I had to buy a new Oyster card, though.  Stupidly, I didn’t pin them back on the board where they should go and I could only find one of them.  Rather than spend ages looking, it was simpler to get a spare.  I’ll have put it in a perfectly sensible place, I just don’t know where.  What a twit – but it’s easily remedied and really hardly mattered at all.

I think I could relish another glass of wine.  Cheers, darlings.