I spent a pleasant morning speaking with Plushy and her maternal unit. Then Plushy and myself went to the station (since, strangely enough, she was catching a train to Nodnol an hour later than mine). The tram ride was interesting (honestly, what could be better than a statue of a cow painted in camouflage?) and in the HMV at the station, I bought the new Dimmu Borgir album since it came with a free CD of new rock music, which will probably be pants but at least I will be Informed.

The train journey to Canterbury, however, was not good at all.

Firstly, despite the fact that I reserved my seat thirteen days before I travelled, and you're supposed to be able to get a cheap seat if you book more than seven days in advance, there weren't any left on any of the trains going to Nodnol that day, so I had to pay a fortune for it.

Then there's the fact that certain Virgin trains are good in that in these days, in each carriage there is a mixture of red and blue seats. This is most unsettling, but at least it keeps you awake and you don't miss your stop, right? However, Virgin trains are bad in that said seats are horrendously uncomfortable. I squirmed and sat on my hoodie and my jacket and crossed my legs, but nothing worked: one hour into the journey, I was longing to escape from the seat.

Oh, I got my wish, all right. Two hours away from Nodnol, there was a points failure, so after a long hold up, we were told to get on a different train.

There were no seats left at all on the other train!

And it was ages before it left, and then it kept stopping and starting.

So I had to spend three and a half hours standing up!

Owwwwwww!

Luckily, since it arrived more than two hours late I'm entitled to compensation. Good thing too, because, thanks to slow Nodnol-Canterbury trains, I didn't reach Canterbury until after 11, so I couldn't really expect Ibid to meet me as planned, and had to pay for a taxi to her new student house. (Which is huge and v. posh.)

I was planning to visit the south for a few weekends in the coming year, but I'm not sure I'll bother now!