Friday 27 March 2020

The New Normal (part 2)

The sign off from yesterday's post was misleading. It made it sound as if I've been nowhere since the Monday before last. Actually that's not true.

On the Tuesday it was St Patrick's Day, and I had train tickets for the 6.10 train from Euston to Chester, where I was meeting my brother - which was one reason I didn't really want to work from home: it made my journey to Euston half an hour longer, and I would have to log off 20 minutes early to give myself a comfortable buffer to find an alternative route if anything went wrong.

And something did go wrong. Firstly all trains out of Euston had been suspended and the announcer was telling everyone to wait on the concourse for further announcements. Secondly my phone, a shiny new but not humungously expensive Sony Xperia, was stolen out of the pocket of my bag.  And on that phone was my train ticket.

After a very stressful thirty minutes where I went back down to the Victoria line platform just in case I could have dropped it (wishful thinking, I knew I hadn't) and a visit to the underground office just in case it was handed in (ditto) and then Avanti couldn't locate my ticket because it had been bought through Trainline, and a very kind worker for West Coast trains let me log into my emails on her phone and forward the email to Avanti, who then equally kindly went into the back office and printed out both the out and the return tickets, I then tried to use a payphone to ring one of the few family phone numbers that hasn't changed in about 20 years, to see if they could pass on a message that I would be late but didn't know how late because the delay was due to a fatality, sadly, so it really would depend on the police.

Of course neither payphone worked (nice to know some things don't change), so I gave up and went into Marks' for a tiny bottle of wine and crisps for the journey and had just about managed to pay when there was an announcement that passengers should get on the train for Runcorn at platform 7, which would stop at Milton Keynes, where our service would depart from.

So we all hurried down to platform 7 and got on, until the train manager announced we should get off because it wasn't stopping at Milton Keynes at all. So, grumbling darkly, we got off and started traipsing back.

But then the platform staff waved us on again and the train manager explained that no-one had told him until this moment that he was, now, stopping at Milton Keynes, and the Holyhead train would be on the adjacent platform waiting for us.

At this point (not before, strangely enough) I wondered if somebody was trying to tell me something. But then I told myself not to be so egocentric and reminded myself that actually against all odds I was on a train going in the right direction, however long it took, and I had wine and crisps (although in my rush I had sadly forgotten to grab a plastic glass and had to neck the single serve bottle like a heathen), was virus free, had not lost anyone in a train accident or suicide, had a couple of very good books to read, had neither lost my temper or foolishly bought a brand new walk up ticket for £91 (although I would have if it had come to it), that the staff had been great, actually, and if I was so horribly late I missed my brother at Chester I knew where he lived.

That was Tuesday. Nine days ago, and I was still thinking it just might all blow over. The train manager was handing out bottled water, the train was packed. The rain was heavy. According to the BBC infographic I just checked we hadn't quite reached 2000 cases. My brother had rung me before I left to check I was still coming up and complain that he had wanted his team to work from home - they're IT, so they were all set up - but HR were resistant. A friend texted the previous evening, very annoyed, to say her department head was telling them to go on as normal, even though the chief exec was saying anyone who could work from home really ought to.

Looking back, neither of those people are jumpy people. Looking back, we had gone from just a few cases to 2000 in 17 days. Italy was in the tens of thousands, although I'm not sure I had really taken in those figures.

I was careful to put the mini wine bottle in my pocket for disposal later so no-one else had to handle it. I was annoyed that the tap didn't run for 20 seconds. I think, in retrospect, I was probably in denial, but I wasn't the only one. Schools were still open, as were pubs, art galleries and all the shops. Starbucks had just said they wouldn't be letting their staff handle reusable cups, but would still give the discount. I hadn't yet heard the phrase 'flatten the curve' which would be all over Twitter by the weekend.

I made a good connection at Milton Keynes but we lost even more time at Crewe where we divided. I reached Chester over an hour late, nearer two, and just had time to check my brother wasn't waiting in the pub opposite the station (he wasn't, there were only about eight people in there, all at different tables, which just shows things were already winding down. Either that or no-one goes to that pub much because although it's near the station it is nowhere near the town centre) and get a ticket on to Frodsham where he actually lives.

I didn't know his flat number and was just contemplated pushing a random button and explaining myself or throwing my empty plastic bottle at the right window once I remembered which that was, when I realised I could hear a mobile ringing through an open well-lit window on the second floor (my brother smokes, so he opens windows even when it's cold, and dark) and then, as I edged over that way I heard the loud but resigned voice of someone who had waited more than an hour at a station in a town he doesn't live in, and where (as he later told me) he had been told the trains from London were on time, rung a mobile which was answered by a stranger who immediately hung up, finally given up, and was now being interrogated about the whereabouts of a sibling who is, when all is said and done, older than he is.

'I don't know dad..' he said, and then, when I called up to him. 'Hang on. She's shouting outside.'

So this story ends with rum and lemonade, my changing my online passwords and logging remote devices out of Google with fraternal assistance, and a very efficient person at the phone company blocking my phone and my sim and ordering me a new one.


 Kings Cross, October 2017. The Eurostar to Paris, and then on to Avignon.

My brother's Christmas tree, the last time I saw him. 
He didn't have carpets or proper curtains but he certainly had plenty of fairy lights.

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