At the train station It is November 2004 – I am in deep grief from the loss of Bob, have virtually collapsed and had to take to my bed; coincidentally an old friend calls me and I explain what has happened; he is so concerned that he invites me over to his city to stay for a long weekend.
Arrangements are made and a few days later, Dharma and I take the tube to Euston where our train is due to depart shortly. We watch the main board to see when our train is ready to board and after a short delay, we are directed to the platform where I am expecting to board coach ‘E’ of a very long train.
We walk through the gates and there are a line of pillars preventing us from seeing much of the train on the other side, so I ask Dharma where our coach is, he tells me that it is right next to the temporary information board we can see standing in the distance, I disagree with him and say that cannot be so, since we are on coach ‘E’ and I can see that the coach between the pillars next to me has a sellotaped square of paper with a black printed ‘D’ in the window of the end door, therefore we are within a few feet of our carriage. We go to carriage ‘E’ and I check my ticket for the number of my seat, oh dear, I have misread the letter and our carriage is actually ‘H’.
Dharma and I wander down beside the train, there seems to be a carriage missing and as we reach ‘H’ I turn to pick up my little case and I see…
… the temporary notice board right opposite where we are to board.
My pride is a little wounded, and as I try to find my correct seat (which was supposedly facing forwards and doesn’t have my reservation on it for some reason) I decide that it was my own brain that worked it out, then I hear an announcement over the intercom which apologizes and informs us that there are no reservations on this train as some carriages had been changed and there was no time to re-allocate the seats.
I then realize that even if my brain had worked out how far carriage ‘H’ would have been along the platform, I would have been wrong.
Humph… clever little dragon I thought.
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