write.as/jonbeckett

You would think – given the frequency I travel up and down the country that I would be used to the various coincidental adventures that creep up on me. Nope. In a “normal” world I would have arrived at Paddington Station, wandered along the concourse to the underground, and jumped on the first circle line train to Euston Road. While walking towards the tunnel leading to the east-bound circle line platform, that entire plan got torn to shreds.

Have you ever heard of the term “strange attractor”? It was popular in Chaos Mathematics about twenty years ago, following the release of James Gleik's book, and then through Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park. The term tries to explain “sods law” – or rather, the particular branch of sods law that covers why you might walk up to a t-junction, and traffic appears at the moment you want to cross, preventing you from doing so. For ages.

I am a strange attractor. How else can you explain the fact that as I walked towards the Circle Line tunnel, the railings were pulled shut in front of me. Apparently a train had hit something near Edgware Road. Quite how a train can hit anything is a bit of a mystery, because trains obviously can't deviate from the tracks they are on – but there you go. I walked straight to the nearby map of the underground and figured out an alternative route – Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, and Victoria to Euston. Simple. Apparently not simple for the army of people questioning the station staff.

Euston was interesting. I arrived half an hour before the first train heading to my destination would depart, and headed straight for the cheapest sandwich shop on the concourse. While standing in the queue my other half called. Apparently our eldest daughter had nothing to eat, which was indirectly my fault for not guessing what she might “like” to eat after scraping herself out of bed. I got ranted at for most of my time in the queue before being redirected to a different queue. You know that thing about strange attractors? As I approached the checkout, the guy on the checkout had to leave to sort something out. Fantastic.

After stuffing my face out on the concourse, the information board announced a platform for my train, and the pushing and shoving world-championships started. Here's the thing I didn't understand – all the old people that somehow won the race to get through the gate onto the train platform then slowed to an amble. Given that non-reserved seats are first-come-first-served, you might think they would have had an organised strategy to block the platform. Not so. I walked past all of them, and got to the “Unreserved” carriage almost before anybody else. Almost.

An elderly lady – surely some kind of ninja – had reached the train carriage ahead of me, and was now blocking the entire entrance to the train – struggling to arrange her bags, or do anything really. I watched in vain as the carriage filled up with people from the far end. People wandering on looked in like all their Christmases had come at once, goggle eyed at the vista of empty seats stretched out in front of them. I so wanted to trample over the old lady with her bags, but instead stood silently, pariently waiting for her to sort her life out.

I did eventually snag a seat. Lots of people didn't. Thankfully there is no loudmouth morbidly obese Australian lady on the train this week to impress anybody she could shout in the general direction of about her various life experiences, thoughts, and ideas.

Peace and quiet.

I busy myself with messing around with the netbook for an hour – tinkering with Scrivener, which is in beta for Ubuntu Linux. I lose myself typing this until I can think of nothing else to write about, then put it away, plug earbugs into my earholes, and listen to a podcast or two.

I wake with a start, and am aware that I might have made a grunting noise as I stir. Nobody nearby is giggling, so perhaps that was my imagination. I look around in a bit of a panic, and then check the map on my phone, which tells me we are still an hour or so from the final destination. Phew.

As we get closer to Preston, the train driver crackles into life over the public address system, and tells everybody that food and drinks will not be served from the catering car until after Preston, which we should be arriving at in 10 minutes time. Oh. My. Word. You have never seen such a stampede of old people. We are still ten minutes from Preston, but they're damn well going to make sure they are first at the train door. Guess who's at the head of the queue – yep – Ninja baggage lady.

I sat in my seat enjoying the jostling, impatient queue of septegenarians until the train was slowing alongside the platforms of Preston station before asking the guy next to me if I could get out.

Fifteen minutes and a short taxi ride later, I am sitting in a hotel room that is absolutely identical to the one last week. The same in absolutely every detail, except for it's position in the hotel. I'll have to try and remember that when returning from the supermarket later.