And, just to round it off, more transport woes.

[chess]

The train back decided to mess around rather. I started out from Newport with a rather odd set of stations on the monitor, but didn't take much notice. Then, before stopping at any stations at all, we stopped, in front of this set of houses out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Then we stayed there for a bit. Eventually the 'Train Manager' announced that there were reports of a car crashing into a bridge at Chepstow and hence everything on the line had been stopped. I phoned home because this sounded like a long delay and I hoped to stop my dad leaving for London yet, but it was too late.

So we waited until I found out some more, and then we got told the train was going through to Glouchester now. I vaguely remembered Glouchester on the board, so I cheerfully reported this to my parents, who were rather confused because Glouchester certainly wasn't on the line we thought I was on. But I also recalled someone else in the carriage saying that the train had been diverted because of work being done on another bridge (a right menace, these bridges), so I told them this and they seemed marginally less confused. But we didn't know where the train was going after Glouchester, because I didn't know if the accident was before or after there. Then we went past Chepstow. Then my dad phoned, from just outside Chelmsford, to ask what was going on. I told him we were definately going to Glouchester and probably right through to London, but he seemed sceptical, so I told him to ring me back at Newbury Park.

I spent a while scouring the countryside for any sign of where the train was, but couldn't find anything with a place name (I'd forgotten the name Chepstow). Eventually I remembered Chepstow, but by then we had come to a more built-up area, and sure enough we were soon at Glouchester. I had a good look at the monitor on the platform and it said we were going to London Paddington, then after we'd pulled out of Glouchester the 'Train Manager' spoke again and said we'd be in London for 15:35. (He really needs to rehearse his speeches better - several times he said 'and' then failed to think of anything to go after the word.)