So anyway ...

the train stopped at Streatham Common ... it wasn't supposed to stop at Streatham Common, but it did.
It waited for five minutes before the driver crackled onto the intercom.
"There's a gas leak in Battersea, so I have to wait here ...
any passengers that want to get off to stretch their legs or to have a cigarette, please do so"
That of course is a sign, it means, this could take a while. So I wait.
twenty minutes go by and nothing.
More crackling intercom.
"I am being told that this could be a while, so any passengers who need to make alternative arrangements
...ohh
hang on"

So I hang on.
Along with everyone else.

All through this episode there is an extraordinarily irritating girl on the telephone, very loud, speaking absolute nonsense to another immensely irritating girl on another train, probably also stationary due to the enforced inability in gaining a passage through the toxic miasma that is Battersea.

Now under normal circumstances, this person would be tolerable, everyone knowing that the maximum amount of time that we had to spend listening to the imbecilic blatherings of this complete dullard, would be a mere ten minutes, tops.
But.
Sitting at Streatham Common, with no sign of a conclusion.

I am chewing the carpet already.
I want to stand up and scream "SHUT UP!"
I want to jam the mobile that she is croaking into up her arse, and I want the man sitting next to me to hold her legs apart while I do it, and I want the russian girl opposite me (don't ask I just know) to batter her with her own arm, the one was ripped off by the older man sitting next to her ...

We all feel it now, that killing feeling ...

and I bet its the same on the other train, with the other girl, at the other god-forsaken station they are stuck on.

I have to get off ...
the feeling is so strong that I barge,
then I'm on the platform, making decisions,
about getting a bus, then a tube.

I'm nearly off the platform

Shouts from the Guard
"Everyone back on, the train is able to leave"

So I leap back on, into a quiet carriage, sedate even, prepared to continue this nightmare. The train moves away and the crackle comes back ...

"Due to the gas leak at Battersea we will be terminating at Clapham Junction"

fuck

short recollection

I am washing up and I'm thinking ...

I once shared, and co-owned, a house in Mayfield.

The situations that lead up to the purchase of this property and the person with which I undertook this responsibility are not for now, so lets move on.
Mayfield is a charming village in East Sussex boasting, at the time, eleven or so pubs. We were fortunate enough to inhabit an idyll right next door to one, with a typical name, The Railway Arms, and I can definitely say for certain that we became locals within two months.
I have nothing but fond memories of this house, whose address I can't remember, so its a crying shame that I was too immature to appreciate it.

There were moments.

I had a beautiful bedroom at the top of the house, sorry, I haven't explained the place have i, well, this is from memory dating back eighteen years.

The house was a right-hand semi-detached property with a small lane running down by the right-hand side. It comprised three floors, Entrance hall leading to a kitchen at the back and a living room at the front. Two bedrooms and a bathroom on the middle floor and the final bedroom, mine, at the top.

I lived there for at least eighteen months and for at least three quarters of that time I was completely happy, not just getting along happy, completely happy.

Why didn't I see that.

There are at least twelve really good stories wrapped around this time.

But that is also for another time.

washing ups done ...