A wonderful multimodal journey home from being on holiday.
A boat, on which I was allowed because I agreed with the security staff that I didn’t have a knife. (If you get too accustomed to certain airports, you start pre-emptively taking your shoes off at all sorts of occasions, which is unnecessary.)
If we’re stickling for detail, there were some shuttle buses (an Agora and a Citaro) at the ports.
Then a National Express coach, where my at-seat electrical socket didn’t work and I rushed to dispatch last week’s week notes in a thrilling race against time as my laptop battery – depleted from doing serious work on the boat – petered out.
Some trains to and from an overnight stop on a sofa, blah blah. Strolling through Liverpool Street station in the morning, I remembered in the nick of time that the politically important “Norwich in 90” train existed and would get me home brilliantly faster than planned.
Finally, a bus, where the cheese in my bag was beginning to smell, not swaddled in enough dirty clothes. By making my fellow passengers wrinkle their noses, was I countermanding all the work I’ve tried to do to promote public transport? Although the driver happened to be the same chap who was so keen on open windows in the pouring rain that time, this time the windows were firmly shut. As if by way of distraction, there was a tense moment where the bus was squeezed alongside a delivery van, and when it cleared without any shattered wing mirrors the whole bus clapped – really.
The cheese was very tasty.