Let that be a lesson!

Last weekend, I madly posted a blog post about how happy I was that our journey from Ramsgate to Bristol was a breeze. Out of all of the journeys that we had to and from Ramsgate and Bristol, for that trip on that Saturday in all it’s gorgeous glorious sunshine was the best travel day ever. I was so impressed by it, I wrote a blog post in all my happy 🙂 glory.

But, I should let that be a lesson to myself. It was almost like I set myself up to fail. Because as much as Saturday travelling was a breeze, the Monday going from Bristol to Ramsgate wasn’t so much.

I know these things happen, delays and whatnot, sometimes they can’t even be prevented. But the fact that it was a bank holiday Monday and half term, you think there’s any major rail company would really think about things before doing them.

Thankfully that morning it wasn’t so much of a rush. But we were all tired after a lovely weekend with the family. When we arrived at Bristol Parkway, the sun was shining, a bit of a change from the rain we had the day before, we were all joking with other passengers in the lift about her journey home and being able to sleep in our own beds. We reached the platform, to see plenty of Villa fans getting ready for Wembley, and other passengers embarking on their holidays or getting ready to go home too.

We asked the polite and friendly staff member where exactly our seats would be before being told there was a slight change in the train plan. And so, our little nightmare began.

Admittedly I’ve been on worst journeys home. This one wasn’t so bad, but we still had to stand for nearly 2 hours on a very packed train, squashed up like cattle, next to heaps of luggage, and a toilet, on a train that was supposed to have 10 carriages, but only had 5.

All I can say is thank God for iPads.

Emily sat rather patiently in her buggy, headphones on and watched her programmes, until she fell asleep just past Swindon.

It wasn’t ideal. Thankfully we didn’t have to hop off or on the train, we weren’t delayed at Bristol Parkway, we weren’t like the lady whose pram frame got broken in the mist of endless luggage, but we had paid for our reserved seats, and couldn’t sit in them.

After a few tweets and stories on Instagram, Great Western Railway have been helpful and said we could claim compensation for not being able to sit at our paid-for seats. I suppose that is a bonus.

Journeys like that are never ideal and like I said we have had a lot worse journeys travelling by train. I suppose next time I won’t get so trigger-happy with writing a post about the ease of transport when we’ve only just completed the first leg of the journey!