Ramsgate; Tuesday, 26 May, 2015

After a nice lie-in it was time to get up, check out and start the journey into work.

As I was coming out of the hotel I saw I’d just missed a loop bus up to the station that was almost empty, and yet there were lots of people waiting at the bus stop. I assumed they were waiting for a different bus, but when the next loop turned up about five minutes later they all piled onto this meaning I only just managed to get a seat (and got some withering looks for daring to hold up the queue by purchasing a ticket and for having luggage). Only when I was sat down and looked at my phone did I realised how badly I’d timed leaving the hotel. It was 09:33 and all the free bus passes had just become valid.

As the bus turned up towards the station it passed, coming in the opposite direction, the National Express coach which was going to be by backup plan had the rail strike still been on.

Thankfully it wasn’t so I was able to get the train just after 10 from Ramsgate and a little before 11:30 was at St Pancras with plenty of time to make it back to Croydon before my half days leave ran out.