MANCHESTER GRAFFITI

Up at 5am. Nosebleed No 2. Drive; park; fumble with car park ticket machine and reject coins all over the tarmac in the dark; train to Leeds; change for train to Manchester. Tram to another part of Manchester. Walk the wrong way to the hotel. Spot the hotel windows way up in the air behind me and abort the walk to Bury.

All day seminar on pension reforms and payroll. Terrifying stuff.

Tram to station - no because there had been an accident. Walk to station having no real idea where it was. I followed people who looked as though they were going to the train station but the b******s kept veering off into car parks and down little roads, which were probably shortcuts to the station, and thereby they didn't get a huge blister like I did. Found the train station and walked round three sides of a building the size of a small town before I found the entrance. Was directed to a train to Scarborough after being promised it would stop at Leeds. I didn't believe them until it did. Hunted down the train to Skipton to find it had been replaced by a sardine can but the nice conductor must have deemed me squishy enough to act as a crash barrier for the other sardines to bounce against, and let me squeeze on.

Found the car and queued and queued to get out of the station car park. Queued and queued a mile down the road to get out on to the main road. Got home and went to bed very early.

I hardly ever get on a train, let alone change from one to another. I have never been on a tram. Don't all shout up there in Edinburgh! I could never commute. A 5 mile drive through the countyside, cows mooing and sheep bleating, is just fine by me.