Bari Centrale – Bari Aeroporto – London Stansted – Tottenham Hale – London Euston – Rugby – Stafford – Stone
I woke up feeling pretty rough. I’d slept badly, had a runny nose, sore throat and a headache. It was still early and thankfully I had a free morning. I got a drink, took some headache tablets and went back to bed.
By about 8am I started to think that I needed to review my plans. I was booked on an afternoon train to Venice, with two nights in a hotel on the Grand Canal. I was also due to meet up with Michael, who is a student there this year.
Looking online I found that there was the option of a lunchtime flight back to the UK from Bari. I pondered it for a while, had a cuppa and a shower. I’m not sure I want to be around other people in one of the busiest cities in the world, or indeed on trains when I’m not well. I hate it when other people get onto trains when they clearly have a bug. At the moment I wasn’t really coughing or sneezing, but it was a reasonable bet that those things could be on the way.
I booked the flight and packed my bags. I also emailed the hotel I was due to stay in to say I wouldn’t be arriving. It was too late to cancel the room but it felt courteous to let them know.
I also emailed Interrail. I’d tried to cancel all my travel plans in the app but it wouldn’t let me cancel “today” even though I’d not travelled and and had deleted the individual journey I had planned for later in the day. To their credit they replied almost straight away and said they would review this tomorrow, when they could confirm that I’d not used the pass all day.
[Note: they did this and the day was credited back to my pass. Thanks, Interrail!]
I bought a “normal” train ticket to the airport, €5.30.
I was a couple of hours early for my flight so after checking in my bag (which I can now only do by allowing the Ryanair app to access Bluetooth on my phone) had time to get some breakfast. Fruit salad and a croissant came to over €9.
The flight appeared to be departing on time, we were checked in as normal but then left standing in the corridor that leads to the plane for about 40 minutes. I’d forgotten how bad budget airlines can be. I’ve not used one in a few years.
Not sure if it is that I wasn’t feeling well or simply that it was colder, but the fleece came out for the first time in a week, as we eventually boarded, 25 minutes after we were due to have left.
I had a window seat so spent the flight either dozing or looking out for places I knew. The GPS on my phone works reasonably well in a plane so with offline maps I’m able to work out where I am a lot of the time.
At Stansted I boarded the train to central London. This was busy but I got a seat. I changed trains at Tottenham Hale for the Victoria Line to Euston.
At Euston it soon became clear that all was not well. Everything was cancelled or horribly late, due to problems in the Stoke and Stafford area i.e. exactly where I was headed to.
I had the unused half of my return ticket to Stone, which limited me to London NorthWestern services. The service I boarded sat in Euston for over half an hour after I got on and it was already 15 minutes late in departing. Eventually it moved, just a couple of minutes short of an hour late.
The train manager announced that this service would be terminating at Rugby, rather than going on to Crewe. There were replacement bus services at Rugby, but also some trains were running. I really didn’t fancy a Friday rush hour bus so stayed on the platform to pick up the next service. I have to say I was really feeling the cold, especially compared to Sicily, by now.
This service was even busier than one I’d been on earlier. I was very happy to find a seat as lots of people were standing. This service was also terminating early, at Stafford rather than Crewe. There was something of a stampede at Stafford station as lots of passengers had a connection that just about could be made. I stood well back as my local service wasn’t for another 15 minutes.
I met friends Sarah and Jon on the platform. They’d been in Birmingham for the day and were also having a nightmare, getting back to Kidsgrove. This service was also standing room only, but at least it left on time. It had taken nearly twice as long to get from Stansted to Stone, as from Bari to Stansted. Horrid.
At Stone, I had a short walk back to my car and drove home. Fortunately Iris was toasty warm as I’d turned on the heating remotely a few hours earlier. By now I was completely shattered and went to bed pretty much straight away.
Sorry about the lack of photos on this post, I wasn’t really thinking about the trip, or the diary, just of getting home to bed.
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