The girls (and boys) on the train

I give thanks the hen party on the train (and the sauce) this morning were not travelling with us for more than an hour...and for remembering to be happy for their pleasure in equal measure with other less compassionate thoughts.

I give thanks for saving my Portuguese custard tart from AMT until they'd disembarked and I could enjoy it in peace. It was the most nutritionally acceptable breakfast dish on offer and way nicer than the English sort...I wish I'd known this in advance as at £1.60 I would have bought two!

I give thanks the 'theatre trip' women drinking in the corridor were able to open and share a bottle of Asti in the swaying corridor without damaging or dampening me as I waited to use the loo! For crochet and garlic rich hummus keeping the seat next to me free for some miles after Jan got off, but that in the rowdy crowdedness after Bristol I was joined by a stunning eyed and friendly A level lad who'd been to a uni open day and was open to discussing his options with me. He was thinking about chemistry or maybe medicine in a hospital but not surgery...and said his mum had a friend who was an anaesthetist and might be able to get him a placement. The mind boggles!

I give thanks for he and an older lady with a view to the vestibule working out when it was safe for me to run the gauntlet of a boozy boys birthday outing for another toilet trip, and at the one change, not only arrival and departure being on schedule, but the pink bunny eared group of girls who tumbled into the station not heading for the same train. I give thanks for one of the on board staff being an old work friend and stopping for a chat...and for a pair of passengers who'd come down from oop north too having a laugh at the coincidence of us having the same final destination.

There's a lot to not be happy at coming home to, but I give thanks for the perennial delight of the last few miles of track, the communal cleaner having done his stuff and NO scary post or phone messages. In fact at the last blood test I'd slipped back into double figures...just...  Great! Better get the washing on and start planning another trip :-)