Day 43 - Going out Not - but maybe later

Tuesday’s are fast becoming the busiest social day of my calendar and this one was no exception.  My day started in whirl, contently stood at the railway station in Goole expecting the train to arrive when… Nothing.  No information and certainly no train.  After some 15 minutes I walked to the ticket office and asked the lady who sold tickets who told me that there was a broken down train and whilst they moving it had no idea when the train would be arriving or any subsequent trains as there were all stuck behind it.  So I resumed my pacing position on the station platform and waited.  A further 15 minutes passed when an automated announcement informed us that the train would be arriving soon some 29 minutes late and the delay was due to a signalling fault.
The train did arrive and we all boarded and told by the conductor that we should arrive in Doncaster by 9.11 a.m.  Good I thought as my Doncaster train leaves at 9.32 so I have plenty of time, no panic.  Unfortunately the train traveled all the way to Doncaster at a crawl and we actually arrived at 9.35 with the explanation that the train had been delayed through a points failure, not sure which of the explanations was actually the right one.  No matter I was still late and I could see my train on the platform across the tracks.  Thinking I would miss it I haired through the subway and noticed that my train was being held up by people talking to the guard and this allowed me to just get onto the train before the doors shut and finally after walking half the length of the train with my two bags managed to get into my seat.  What a morning so far.
The rest of the journey was good as I managed to get a little doze before we arrived at Kings Cross.
Early afternoon gave me a chance for a walk around the stations with my Selby colleague and what a buzz when walking through St Pancras there was a Turkish Airline stand and some people giving away goodie bags with Turkish Airline and Dawn of Justice items in it.  We managed to bag one each and continued on our walk.  There were some envious eyes as we walked back into the office.

The night was going to be special as my Selby colleague had got us a couple of tickets to a read through of the TV show Not Going Out with Lee Mack and I have to admit being pretty excited about it as I do like the show and have watched all series and episodes so far.  I have seen Lee Mack before on his stand up tour but obviously not any of the other cast.
Therefore I left work at 4.20 p.m. and rushed like crazy to the hotel to check in and get changed.  That took less than 25 minutes, as the walk is 15 minutes on its own. So by 4.45 I was running down the stairs at Russell Square tube station and onto the tube to get to Victoria where I had agreed to meet my Selby colleague.
He arrived and we caught the train to Battersea Park Station.  The walk from the station took 20 minutes and finally by 6.00 p.m. we were at the venue.  This is where it started to go wrong a little.
It transpired that they had been doing a ready through for the last few days and as each evening is over-subscribed due to it being free and a lot of people not turning up the policy is, if you don’t get in on the day you get a priority ticket for the next evening.  To cut a very long story shorter, by this evening there were so many priority tickets that only 8 people from the tickets for this evening actually got in.  but it is not as bad as it sounds as firstly the girl trying to organise things and deal with obviously disappointed people was very competent and everyone knew what was going on all of the time, unlike the trains.  She apologised and explained that those of us who could not get it would be sent priority tickets for the actual recording which was brilliant and in my view I would be happier to see the recording than the read through and on top of that, the cast came down from the upstairs theater area for dinner and we got to see the whole cast including Lee, Hugh Dennis and the girl who plays Lucy.  I did get a picture of Lee Mack as he was talking to the couple who play Lucy’s parents but no more as there were soon sat there eating and I didn’t feel it was fair to take photo’s as there were having their dinner.

So with the promise of recording tickets we left the venue and headed by bus back to central London.  Wondering what to do we eventually decided we would go for a fish and chip at the pub near Big Ben before walking up to Trafalgar Square and see the Palmyra Arch from Syria which was a robot built replica which has been installed as an exhibit.  I have included a photo below which did look nice all lit up in red.

After a little look around we headed back to the tube and to Kings Cross.
I bid goodnight to my Selby colleague and I walked the 15 minutes to my hotel, enjoying the now cooling evening.
All in all it was a really good night, not done exactly what we were planning but we had seen parts of London not seen before and the promise of recording tickets.