Christ Almighty you have no idea about the shite that is the local train service. Don’t think that the one you see here is pictired trundling happily onto the platform — instead it is hanging there, just for arbitrary reasons. Not only that, but it’s the first train out of Hebden into Manchester for some hours. The giuy’s face says it all. In the end I didn’t even bother.
I didn’t go out today, and alongside the poor weather, here is a good reason why. I don’t normally do this kind of thing on here, but observations must be made, in photo form, of the ‘helpful’ information currently available on the Northern Rail web site. Nobody in ‘Authority’ really gives a toss one way or the other, so here we are. Twelve and a half years in power and this bunch of idiots can’t even provide a working railway. Or is it the unions’ fault, somehow? For what though, expecting that all that rubbish spoken in 2020 about how important ‘keyworkers’ are might actually translate into an ability, two years later, to at least sustain their rewards in the face of the rising cost of living? (See also nurses, postal workers, etc.)
So be it. The two trips I have to make before the (ostensible) resumption of ‘the usual service’ on 9th Jan. could have been done on the trains, instead I am obliged to use less environmentally sustainable means. Sadly I don’t expect 2023 to be much different, throughout.
I have never seen snow falling anywhere as early in a year as 17th October, but Iceland lived up to its name this morning and duly delivered, as my first flight home returned me to Keflavik. This seems even to have caught Icelanders unaware, seeing as it caused my second flight to be delayed two hours while we waited, seemingly endlessly, for the wings of our aircraft to be de-iced (“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking…. We are eighth in the queue for de-icing…. [45 minutes later] We are sixth in the queue….”). But I did get home in the end.
Our last day in Iceland was supposed to end around, oh, say 9am? And we were due home in Hebden Bridge by 2pm.
As you can see from this, this didn’t happen. In fact, we did not leave the airport until 9.30pm, after a litany of farce that I do not wish to begin to recount. Thus, another two hours after this take-off time was promised to us.
You can’t completely see the flight number to identify the budget carrier who inflicted this joke upon us (with no informational updates); let me just say they wear orange. A shame because otherwise this has been an excellent week in Iceland, if you get to visit it I highly recommend it.
Being 42 