A Blustery Day (or Jim comes to the Rescue)

Thursday was an unusual day. I was working in St Albans in the morning and Paddington in the afternoon. Gail and I drove up to stay was Hazel & Rob on Wednesday night so Gail could spend the day playing Battleships with Rob and Scrabble with Hazel. In the morning I headed into the office and by lunchtime was on a train into London. The wind was a little on the strong side and by the time I got to our Paddington office it was strong enough to lift clouds of spray off the canal and break windows in the office block I was walking past. Two hours later as I started to make my way back to Kings Cross Station I had a few problems to deal with. Firstly the central and district lines were closed so I figure a cab would be the quickest way. It was only now I started to realise that the winds had caused a little more damage than the odd broken window. Power was out in several places and therefore traffic lights were not working and the area within 2 miles of Kings Cross was grid locked. I saw a signpost torn out of the ground and several broken trees. The wind however had died right down and it was back to just a blustery day. When the cab got to Kings Cross and I saw the Police blocking the entrance, part of the entrance roof missing and hundreds of people milling around I figure I was going to have an interesting day. Entering the station I discovered all trains had been cancelled. A little research on my phone told me that Paddington was also closed, so was the M11 and the M25 in several places. This was suddenly a very scary place to be. I got some cash from the nearest cash point, pondered the alternatives; hotel, cab to St Albans or cab to Jim’s. Jim seemed like the best option. I phoned Gail to let her know I was very unlikely to get back to her that evening and then found a cab willing to go out to Northolt. The journey took close to 2 hours and £70 pounds but still way cheaper than finding a hotel. Walking through Jim’s front door I relaxed for the first time in 4 hours an relaxed a little more as soon as Jim provided a beer. We went out for a curry, just down the road from him and had a very pleasant evening. I spent the night comfortably on a mattress on the lounge floor. In the morning I borrowed Jim’s car and drove back to St Albans, collected Gail and then my car from the work car park. We returned Jim’s car on our way home and finally got back to Bristol between 2pm and 3pm.

Thank's Jim, it very good to know you are there for me in an emergency. I also hope BT will fix your phone soon so you can get back on the web and see this.