Lindy Kato (Writer)

Recently I travelled to Sydney, so exciting to see my mokopuna, I miss him so much. My daughter too though we communicate in some way most days. I must mention though that my flights were cancelled in both directions. Never book a flight that I’m on.

The outward flight ended up being a bonus, I got put up in a hotel in Auckland and given ninety NZ dollar food allowance. I ate ninety-three dollars at dinner (I was going to miss breakfast anyway). I felt like Mr. Creosote. It wasn’t just that though, the hotel I had booked in in Sydney, had emailed to say they had no water, hot or cold, would that affect my travel plans? Smelling is one thing but what about the cup of tea???

Trying to get an early night before the flight home was a bit different. A text to say the flight was cancelled, they could smell oil…at an airport. After two hours still zero news. When I phone, I am 11th in the queue to speak to a real person. Who knew nothing. Eventually I got an email with new flights—I wasn’t going to make my connecting flight either. None of the bumped passengers believed the oil smell story, the truth I bet, is the plane was half-full and not profitable.

While I am ranting about travel and having had a bit of time now to process Mum’s death and Dad’s bewilderment, I want to rant about train travel in London.

Recall that before Christmas I had COVID as well as bereavement, then flew halfway around the world. I had a plan for getting to Essex from Heathrow, the Elizabeth line, then the district line. The sleep deprived and befuddled passengers off that flight were met with a sign – Elizabeth line flooded. There were cryptic instructions about turning left by a shop we never heard of and right by another we had never heard of in the dark (who knew it would be so dark at the crack of dawn) and rain and not a local in sight!

I have an advantage over the other tourists in that my misspent youth was misspent on the London Underground forty-five years ago. None of this existed then. What I did remember was that the Piccadilly line intersects with pretty much anything so although off piste I wasn’t totally lost.

The home for the bewildered had both COVID and norovirus and not accepting visitors, so I had another bash at the train service to visit Oxford, place of a huge number of fictitious murders thanks to Colin Dexter. But this Christmas, so a brilliant time to strike and annoy the maximum number of people. Train drivers earn more than nurses, so my sympathy is limited. Plus, during the night, a catastrophe occurred to some overhead cables. Commuters were trapped in trains across the capital for hours, let off periodically to pee on the tracks. Remember this is December in the northern hemisphere, iced up, trains without power, have no heating.

Between the striking lines which varied day to day and those out without power, I arrived at Rayleigh station with a plan that the morning papers assured me wouldn’t work. The lovely station lady hadn’t read the papers and had to phone a friend, ended up editing the plan by hand, I love that you can get printed instructions, soooo useful. Something else worth knowing is that the ticket was sixty-one British pounds. I had a sharp intake of breath until she asked if I was coming back. I thought a ‘return’ ticket meant the same day, but it is within thirty days. A return ticket was sixty-four pounds, bargain!

Now the train service, if it worked, would be brilliant. I got as far as Paddington but too late for the connecting train to Oxford, so I got a coffee and wandered to the platform to find that the screens listed every train as cancelled bar one…which was delayed. This was the train I believed I had missed and was still sitting at the station. The occupants were confident that it would leave eventually, and we all had a great time, and it did leave and went not to Oxford but to Reading. Which is at least in the right general direction.

The poor announcements girl eventually stopped with a sore throat. She tried to tell us that the train was delayed because there was another one in front of it that was stopped, then eventually admitted that it hadn’t in fact left, and later still – that it now lacked a driver. Some people were getting a little shirty and by now every train had some problem, mostly they didn’t exist. Finally, they found a driver and put on a train that originated in Reading to take us to Oxford. Luckily, I had left a day early and so the several hours late just meant it was even colder by the time I arrived, and I had to buy more clothes.

Oxford was everything I had hoped, even alcohol-free Guinness – who knew!

But two days later the overhead line problem still hadn’t been fixed and returning to Rayleigh got even worse. Left big toe completely dead with cold, left-hand fingers dead despite wearing two pairs of gloves. Right hand thumb and two fingers dead, both ears dead. Train delayed by seven minutes the board said. Eventually an actual person came to tell us that the only chance anyone has of getting to London is on the Marylebone slow train. I have no idea where that is, but I will give it a go! It is crowded and doesn’t leave. The delayed Paddington train arrived and there is a mass exodus from the slow train so I get a seat. The same bloke comes back and drags everyone off the Paddington train which really isn’t going anywhere. I got it right for once!

It was torture. The train from Oxford to Marylebone (not Paddington), stopped EVERYWHERE. No one could get on, we were as squashed as could be, yet the doors kept opening, just as well or we would have suffocated. I had a five-year-old leaning against me constantly announcing she was going to be sick, and her oldest sister had a dreadful cough. The journey took the best part of two hours. In Marylebone the queue for the ladies was already winding around the station with the wind and rain blasting through the entrance directly at these already done in women. The blokes stood around scratching their heads. Their empty toilet, more sheltered from the rain, was looking quite attractive when I realised the baby changing room also had a toilet. My tinkle would be rapid and if someone came in within an emergency baby change situation, I was sure I could get out in a timely manner. I used it, despite the glares. Marylebone isn’t useful and there are literally hundreds of lost bedraggled souls with a ton of luggage going in all directions. The icy rain piecing the skin on my face, my new umbrella blown out instantly.

Even with a mask I have no idea how I didn’t get sick.

That was London, in Sydney, the train service is awesome! Don’t ever let a taxi driver pick you up from the airport, it is quicker and much cheaper by train.