dag 1228: road river and rail

Last night I got the train from work as normal and got into my car, which had been left in the rail station carpark. It was very wet and the windows misted up in next to no time so I had my front blower on aswell as my heated rear window.

I went home via sainsburys so I could buy some beer as I had none in at home and my latest order of Lapin Kulta was not due to arrive for a day or so.

I cannot remember the names of any of them but basicaly I bought 1 bottle of some speciality beer brewed in Denmark by Carlsberg, 1 bottle of Chinese beer and 2 small bottles of mexican beer in funny shaped bottles.

I couldn't park near the store entrance and the rain was really heavy so I got pretty well soaked by the time I got back in my car so aswell as the front blower and read heated window, I turned on my heated seat to help dry my trousers.

I parked the car just round the corner from my house, as normal, got all my stuff out and raced round to the house where I found the door locked and I didn't have a key on me. I could hear that bathtime was in progress so I knew I would be being let in just yet so I sheltered in the garage, which I had spent most of last weekend clearing out and tidying up.

About 45 minutes later I was in the lounge with plenty of logs on the fire watching a recording of that nights Celebrity Master Chef taking my first sips of the Carlsberg speciality brew (not to be confused with Carlsberg special brew) when the door bell rang. It was one of my neighbours who had spotted that my Smart car was currently letting quite a bit of rain in due to the back window no longer filling the hole where the back wiondow of a Smart car would normally be found. Instead it was in several hundred small pieces, some in the car and some on the road.

I went round to investigate and found that both the doors were still locked and there was no sign of anything having been taken. It appeared as if somebody had just decided to smash for reasons of their own. I went back to report it to the police before going back round with some bin bags and a roll of parcel tape to see if I could do something to fill in the gap.

I finally manged to cobble something together, but I can confirm that parcel tape is not very good at sticking something that is wet to something else that is also wet, especially while you are trying to perform the sticking manouver in torrential rain. By the time I got back to the house I was even wetter than I had been in Sainsburys carpark so I dried off in front of the fire and continued watching celebrity masterchef. I don't normally watch programmes with the word celebrity in, but this was an exception because a) I quite like masterchef and b) it had Midge Ure in it and the first time I ever heard of midi was on some TV program where it showed Midge Ure doing some stuff with midi and that inspired me to get into it myslef and also I think he is better than Bob Geldof.

Anyway back to the story.

I now had to decide how I was going to sort all this out. I though the best bet would be to get a taxi to the nearest rail station in the morning and try and arrange for autoglass to fit a new back window on the car where it was parked during the day.

So next morning the taxi dropped me of at the station and I ran to get under cover as it was still chucking it down.

traintime

The train seemed to be somewhat delayed and eventually a guard came and asked if anyone was going to Leeds. I said I was and he said the line was closed between Harrogate and Leeds and no buses were running but if I got the train to York I could then catch another one to Leeds. I reckoned that would take me most of the morning to do so I tried to think of an alternative. The option seemed to be as follows:

1 - Take the train to York and be resigned to the fact that it would take me hours to get to work, though it would give me plenty of time to play Ratchet and Clank on my OSO.
2 - Go back home and drive to work in my Smart car with no back window.
3 - Go back home and take the day off.
4 - Take the train as far as Harrogate and then decide what to do when I get there.
5 - Ring my Mum to see if she is going anywhere near Leeds on her way to work.

My response to each was:

1 - Would take too long to get to work.
2 - Didn't fancy driving it like that and I had nowhere safe to leave it in Leeds.
3 - I'm and IT contractor - this one didn't even get a look in.
4 - Sounded the best so far, but wouldn't get me all the way to work.
5 - Seems the only available option really.

So I rang my Mum and she said she would collect me from Harrogate station and drop me off in Leeds on here way to Guisley. She had an appointment at 11:00 but as she would be collecting me at aroun 9 o'clock that should leave plenty of time.

So she colected me and off we went. Or at least we did until we joined a queue on the way up the hill to Harewood. I guessed the queue was from the traffic lights at Harewood and probably caused by there being more traffic than normal due to trains being cancelled. We got to the traffic lights at Harewood but noiticed the traffic moving fairly slowly after them and once we were through the traffic lights thing slowed down to a stop. We then didn't move for the next half an hour. Traffic was occassionaly coming past in the other direction but we weren't moving and my Mum was no in danger of missing her appointment. I sugested she turn round and go her normal way to work, but there was nowhere to drop me and she would definatley be late if she did turn back so we waited and hoped it would start shifting again. Eventually it did and I saw the road had been blocked by a fallen tree - which explained why the busses weren't running.

Eventually we got into Leeds and at a suitabel point I said thanks and hopped out of the car. I had aabout a 15 minute walk from this point, but my Mum didn't know the centre of Leeds very well and at least there were signs for her to follow from the point where I got out and she should end up not being as late as if she had dropped me nearer work.

I eventually got into work at 11:00 and rang my Mum at 11:30 to check that she had got there OK for here meeting. She said she had only just arrived and her meeting had actually been at 10:30 and she had been flashed going through some traffic lights after dropping me off.

Well I felt pretty guilty and I will, of course, offer to pay the fine, but it just shows what dedication and professionaism an IT contractor can have in the face of adversity.