Heading South....

When the time came to leave Manchester, I was handed into the care of two R*dcl*ffe young people, with the instruction, get your auntie sally safely on to a train...as if I wasn't capable of catching a train on my own....we caught the local train into Manchester where I was talked to non -stop in between phone calls from mobiles to friends in Manchester, waiting to go shopping, saying they would be there 'as soon as they safely had their auntie sally on a train.'' Simple.

When we got to the station, there were no trains to London showing on the screens. Investigation proved that this was correct, due to a derailment near Watford, no trains were going into London. Typical. I turned to my two young friends who were both on their mobiles again saying they would be held up. You go and join your friends, I'll be fine. But no, they had to make sure I was on a train. Any train.

Having worked out I could connect to a London train by going elsewhere, a suitable train was located, leaving in 30 seconds, so I was ushered on, and waving madly, my young friends ran off to get down to some serious shopping.

I settled on my train, showing my ticket to the kind lady inspector and explaining my change of direction. I realised I didn't know what connecting train to get. I rang Stu and Karen, explained my dilemma and asked them to find me a connecting train...not into London, but somewhere near St Albans. Watford? Luton? What time does your train arrive, asks Stu, looking at his pc.

Oh, I don't know.. I call down the crowded carriage to the lady ticket inspector, sounding, I realise afterwards, southern and quite posh...' Excuse me, what time does the train arrive at Sheffield?' She turns round. 'We're not going to Sheffield, me duck, this train is going to Leeds.' There are a few guffaws around the carriage and a couple of ladies cluck sympathetically. 'Whatever, 'I say, 'I don't mind where.' This is greeted with more tittering and people look at me as if I'm mad.

I tell Stu my time of arrival in Leeds, and he tries to get me to Luton or Watford, but fails. I rack my brain....where can I go...I know!! The Leeds line goes to Stevenage. 'Get me to Stevenage!' I shout, aware that everyone in the carriage is listening with interest, wondering why I don't seem to care where I am going... 'Make up your mind,' says Stu, sounding exasperated. But I am right, I can catch a connection to Stevenage and be there by 5.40pm.. I only lsoe an hour or two.

DC, who was going to pick me up at Watford, had I gone straight from Manchester, and we were going to shop at Staples..is phoned by S and K, and instructed to meet me elsewhere.

When I am on the platform in Leeds I get a text from K. 'Has Paddington Patterson arrived yet?' 'Yes' I reply. I manage to get to my connecting train (God knows how without the help of my two assistants) and reach Stevenage at 5.40pm precisely. DC is late. It is cold and raining. Eventually he arrives and we speed to nearby Staples to do a large stationery shop in 10 minutes before it closes at 6pm.... of course when we reach the till, there are complications, we have spent more than our account card will allow, and they can't confirm by phone as the office is closed. So we offer to pay by credit card instead.

Would you believe that everything in our two trolleys has to be rescanned to be credited against our account card, then scanned again against our credit card? The staff all try and help the Saturday girl who is clearly overwhelmed by the whole process while DC and I try and be patient and accept our fate which seems a ludicrous way of going about things..aren't computers lvoely???

By 6.30pm we are surrounded by 6 fed up staff members who can't close the tills and lock up and go home until we do.

Safely in the car, I reflect it's been an interesting day. Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, they're all the same to me. No, says DC, Sheffield is further south, you'd have been much quicker going there than Leeds. Really? Is it? My geography has never been very good. I could have sworn Sheffield was further north than Leeds. I get a withering look and a cuff round the head.

Then I was home, to be greeted by the husband and mother in law. It had been a good weekend.....