My regular reminder about names. To maintain confidentiality in my blogs - my wife is Sacha and our daughter is Kasa. Our son doesn't get a mention normally!
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I had set the alarm for 6am - probably half an hour too early, but it gave us plenty of time to do the various jobs that needed doing before leaving home.
The taxi we had booked for 9:45 arrived before 9:30 - the driver claimed the back end of the app was unreliable. Whatever! We got to Leicester Station at little earlier than expected, so took a train that got us into St Pancras just before 12. The first class section was really busy, and we initially struggled to find a pair of seats.
We had decided to take the Circle Line all the way round to Embankment rather than using the direct route. By a bizarre coincidence I met someone on the train I'd worked in Leicester with before I retired many moons ago. She'd been trying to find out how to contact me so as to invite me to her retirement do! Later on she messaged me - and she'd had lunch with her brother in exactly the same place as us, a little later. Very strange how things turn out!
We had resolved to have a bit of lunch at the Civil Service Club in Whitehall (we are members - it's no where near as posh as it sounds!) Fortified with huge sandwiches, salad and fluid we walked through Jubilee Gardens to Waterloo Station - which was further than we'd expected.
There was a convenient train for Portsmouth on Platform 6. It had a tiny first class section at the back - but for most of the journey we were the only occupants.
Sacha is fretting about the cat. It's the first time we've left her, but Kasa is going to be staying at our place to feed her and keep her company. It'll be fine!
We decided that the seats on South West Trains are uncomfortable - both of us had backache when we got off at Portsmouth & Southsea Station. I had assumed that there was a bus station next to the railway station, but I was wrong - but we found the right bus stop after a bit of a wander caused by Google Maps.
The bus journey was 'interesting' - the driver had received a message that a drunk would try to board the bus, and wasn't allowed on. This caused a delay to several following buses as well as ours while the drunkard stood in front of the bus. The driver had called the police, but I'm guessing they're still on the way. Eventually he wandered off and the controller let us continue. Life eh?
We arrived at the port terminal with a couple of hours in hand. Unimpressed with boarding arrangements at Portsmouth though - we specifically asked about standing in queues - for Sacha - and we ended up standing for ages in the queue for security. If we'd have waited until the queue had died down then she wouldn't have got a seat on the shuttle bus. Another issue was that there's signs imploring drivers to switch off their engines for the sake of reducing pollution - yet the shuttle bus was sitting with it's diesel engine rumbling away. Sigh.
Anyway the cabin is lovely (even if the window is filthy). Let's go and find some grub!!