This won’t be the most riveting of posts as there wasn’t really any drama. But, I had the opportunity to pop overseas for the weekend and that’s not something that I was going to deny myself. That meant a train journey from Norwich to Stansted Airport which was a very reasonable £14 booked on a complex ticketing arrangement.
Waiting at the platform on a sunny Friday morning. It was already too hot.
Here comes the train sweeping in and it was clear that there weren’t that many commuters waiting to go to Cambridge, which meant for a quiet journey in.
And there’s my meal deal arrangement from the Co-op, very healthy as I’m sure that everyone would agree. Co-op sandwiches are not of the highest quality, the bacon is usually excessively fatty and the chicken has not been lavished with taste, but the prawn sandwich is agreeable enough.
This was my view for most of the journey. Well, specifically I mean the empty seats, I didn’t have my head on the table.
The waiting room at Cambridge railway station where I had a wait for the next train of around thirty minutes. A quick word on my rail ticket which technically required me to get off at Cambridge North and then get onto another operator’s train to take me the short distance to Cambridge. With the guard’s permission, I just stayed on the same train to avoid that change, but it’s that quirky switch to a Great Northern train which is why the ticket was much cheaper than the usual fare even to Cambridge. To be honest, at times it feels that securing agreement for an international treaty would be easier than getting cheap rail fares, the system really is sub-optimal in many ways.
The view over Cambridge railway station from the bridge over the platforms.
The only photo that I have of the second train and it was also relatively quiet. Fortunately, everything was running on time and there were no delays. As a side issue, I note that my bag looks in excellent condition there.
I got muddled up at Stansted Airport railway station and managed to leave the ticket gates at the lift which I’ve never used before. I didn’t expect it to go straight into the terminal, I usually meander around some ramps to get there, so that was some operational efficiency that I hadn’t expected.
With that, I had arrived on time and I could start to think about my flight….