The day from hell

I suppose there are many people who have the odd day here and there when everything seems to go wrong and they wish they had never got out of bed, well that was me yesterday. Happy Mother’s Day? – well no, it wasn’t.

After not being able to find the John Wayne mosaic at HOME arts venue on the art trail in Manchester a week ago I found out from the trail’s organiser that it would be reinstated in a different part of the building so yesterday I went to see it, with the idea of visiting somewhere else in the city beforehand, however right from the start things didn’t go according to plan. The train from my nearest station should have been just after mid day but by 12.30 it hadn’t arrived; now this station isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, it’s in the centre of a large housing estate, but there’s absolutely no train information anywhere, so I decided to get a bus from a nearby stop and go to the main interchange in town.

According to the bus timetable I would only have a couple of minutes to wait, however the main road seemed to be much busier than normal with a long queue of traffic and the bus was almost ten minutes late – I found out later that the delay had been caused by a two-car crash further up the road. By the time I got to the main station I’d missed a Manchester train by about thirty seconds; looking at the information boards it seemed that many services were cancelled (according to various tannoy announcements ”due to unscheduled timetable changes”) and I had half an hour to wait for the next train.

I finally arrived in Manchester at 1.45pm, only to find that the first of the two places I was visiting was closed, so I hopped on a tram which would take me to the station nearest to HOME where I could see the John Wayne mosaic. There was an art exhibition in part of the ground floor so once I’d photographed the mosaic I had a wander round there, and though I liked some of the artworks on display, especially the cats, many others left me less than impressed – they were pointless, stupid, and some of them could have been created by a five-year old child in just a few minutes.

A child could probably do better than this ‘creation’

A pointless jumble of taped together computer parts – I wonder how long it took to think this one up

After wandering round the exhibition I decided to go to the cafe/bar and it’s a good thing I wasn’t dying of thirst and starvation or I would have been in a heap on the floor by the time I got served. Now when it comes to food I’m not that hard to please but I dislike spicy stuff and everything on the menu included peppers and other spicy things so I opted for coffee and cake; the slice of rainbow cake was good when I finally sat down but the coffee wasn’t exactly hot. It was raining when I came out of HOME so deciding to cut my losses and come home rather than go anywhere else I got the tram back to Victoria station but getting back here proved to be almost impossible.

The 3.40pm train going to my nearest station was cancelled, as was the next one half an hour later and the one after that, however a guy at the information stand told me I could get the Southport train to my main station. It meant waiting an hour so I went for a wander round the nearest shops to kill some time, however when I finally went for the Southport train I found it didn’t come through my home town at all – the guy at the stand had given me the wrong info. So I asked another guy and was told my only option was to get a train from Piccadilly station; it was another tram ride between stations and a good walk from the Piccadilly tram stop via various moving walkways to the main concourse, and by the time I’d found the right platform I’d missed the next train by less than a minute!

By this time I’d just about lost the will to live but as throwing myself in front of the next moving object wasn’t an option I went to ask a sensible looking young lady at the barrier and was assured that I could get the next Windermere train which would stop at my main station. Another 50-minute wait and I was finally on a train going in the right direction, however when I got to my main station my journey wasn’t over. I still had to get from there to the car park at my local station where I’d left the van – and the next bus wasn’t for another half hour. By this time though I’d had enough of waiting around so I phoned for a taxi which dropped me off at the station car park and finally, at almost 7pm, I walked through my own front door.

I don’t know what it’s like in other areas of the country for train drivers going on strike – it’s been happening here on and off for several months but normally I don’t have any problems getting to and from Manchester on Sundays. Yesterday though was just a nightmare, even the young lady at the Piccadilly station barrier had said it was really bad. I won’t be going to the city for a while now however, though I think the next time I venture that way it will be on any day except Sunday!