I tell you, whatever deity governs my day-to-day existence was NOT smiling on me today. I was supposed to be going down to London today for a seminar on becoming a mediator. It's something that I want to do in order to participate more fully in some of the work I do for Coady Consultants, so serious business...
My sense of foreboding arose first as I spent a significant amount of time in the morning searching through the washing for a clean pair of matching socks. My suspicions were further confirmed as I arrived at the train station to find that my train was pulling out. Now, I can blame many things for this, not least of which the socks. I can blame it on the fact that Wolverhampton City Council have in their infinite wisdom closed St Davids, so I had to go the long way around. I can blame it on the fact that EVERY SINGLE TRAFFIC LIGHT I CAME TO was on red. But the plain fact of the matter is that I didn't get up early enough, and the fact that I'm well aware of this didn't help at all.
Thankfully my outward journey was an open off-peak single which meant that I could just jump on the next one, and the fact that the event didn't start 'til half past two meant I'd given myself plenty of time to mess it up, so I got on the train, arrived in London still with plenty of time to go, got on the tube and headed down to Charing Cross. This is the one tube station in London I don't need reminding about since it appears in the Feeder song Waiting For Changes, and I must admit it made a nice change to have that song going round in my head while on the tube, rather than London Underground by the Amateur Transplants. On arriving at Charing Cross, I got my bearings, found the building I'd have to be in at half two, and went to get something to eat, photographing the various statues around Trafalgar Square (I'll put them up later) to kill some time. I arrived back at Duncannon Street at quarter to two, waited half an hour... nothing happened. I tried the door, nothing happened. I tried the intercom, nothing happened. I checked my briefing letter to see if there was anything I'd missed... to find that the seminar was not on Sunday 24th July, but on Friday 22nd. I was urinated.
Now the sensible thing at this point would have been to get back on a train and s**t off back to Wolverhampton from whence I came. But I couldn't do that either. To save money, (my Dad had paid for my tickets out of the company,) I was quite specifically on the 18:38 train. So, I passed the time by going around the national gallery for a little while, watching some street theatre (which I did donate to, incidentally. The guy was a contortionist and clearly has worked very hard to get his body into a condition where he can fit himself through a 15" diameter tube and a plastic box, and has made more effort to do that than I have ever made doing anything. Fair play to him.) sitting on the fountains texting Amy and Dave, and I ended up in Waterstones where I bought a couple of graphic novels and the Necronmicon... is that how you spell it? It's HP Lovecraft, anyhow. Only then did I notice that my tube ticket and my car parking ticket had fallen out of whatever I'd put them in.
Now you'd think, for heaven's sake, get a grip, but in actual fact this worked out for the best. Now unable to use the tube, I walked from Charing Cross back to Euston, which killed about half an hour and I got a bit of exercise. It's not actually all that far; I would normally walk further than that with the dog - though not usually in shoes. And then after arriving in Wolverhampton - though not before I scratched my chest and found out I'd got sunburned - I said to the guy on the desk that I'd lost my ticket and what could I do about it, and he asked me how long I'd been there and said give me £2.50 and I'll sort it out. So I actually ended up paying less to get off the car park than I would have done had I not lost the ticket.
Arriving home, I put my laptop on, and I thought to myself, well, today's pretty much a write-off, let's salvage what we can and take the dog for a walk. But no, I couldn't even get this right. I took her up the woods, it was dark, I couldn't see. Not usually a problem as I know the place like the back of my hand, but tonight I felt my foot slip where the ground wasn't the slightest bit muddy, and smelled the pungent aroma of dog s**t a few steps later.
Not one of my better days, all in all. Let's hope tomorrow brings a brighter day.
Did I just say that?
