Leicester; Friday, 26 April, 2013

The morning rush hour had been an almost total wipe-out because of the main signalling centre being evacuated due to fire alarms. I’d struggled into work with my luggage on a heaving bus and consequently was quite pleased I’d booked a train after 7pm from St Pancras as it would give me sufficient time to get up there.

By the time I left work shortly after 5pm there were still some major delays occurring, nearly 12 hours after the initial incident, but thankfully the trains were in a sufficient enough mess that I caught one to St Pancras almost straight away, and whilst it dawdled through South London and took nearly an hour to do what should normally take 30 minutes I was still at St Pancras with time to spare.

I grabbed a light bite to keep me going in the Pret in the 20 minutes I had spare before my train left, then wandered up to the platform and headed north.

In only a few minutes longer than it had taken to get the 9 miles from Croydon the train managed the 100 miles up to Leicester, arriving a few minutes early.

A short walk from the station and I found myself at my hotel. After checking in and dropping my stuff off I headed out into town for a brief wander around, before finding a curry restaurant, for which the city has a justified excellent reputation, and a delicious evening meal.

Feeling a little bloated I headed back to the hotel and to bed.