My wife works in London on Saturdays.  Last week and the week before she lost clients because cable thieves took the wire.  This week she’d had enough and she decided to stay in London last night.  There was no way to get any information over the phone (they could only give the normal timetable and tell us there may be some changes), so we simply had to walk down to the station and find which train was or wasn’t cancelled.

This week also saw me having to return to Ipswich on Monday and losing a day’s holiday.  On Thursday both me and my wife caught the 9.30 train and arrived at 1.15 AM, two hours late.  In the last two weeks I have been late more often than I’ve been on time, needless to say it’s starting to be noticed.  Thank God that I’m going to be able to extensively work from home next year.

At least in Ipswich we can vote out the minister responsible for railways.

So our MP is put in charge of the roads and railways and within days Ipswich station is struck by lightening and the A14 is flooded and blocked by a crash.  Next we’ll be having plagues of frogs and locusts. Either the Almighty is displeased or Chris Mole is cursed with terrible luck.

Like many people who live in Bridge I was held up in the drama today.  For once I’m not going to moan about the railway company, who did the best they could under extraordinary circumstances – and if a chimney being struck by lightening is not extraordinary then I don’t what is.  In the end we were held up for one and a half hours – although the flow of information was constant and reassuring, and the staff pulled together. 

Ipswich station was also well run considering that it had been evacuated just twenty minutes before we got there, with even delay-repay forms being handed to us as we got out of the station.  It is a stark contrast to the times when much smaller incidents seem to have given the railway a nervous breakdown.

Anyway here are the stories from the BBC and the Evening Star.

Any way here are a couple of photos that have appeared on the BBC and in the Evening Star, if anyones got other pictures, particularly in Bridge, let me know on james@bridgeward.org.uk