So where does the weekend start

And how do I come to be sitting here with dreaded lurgy, pondering paracetamol and housework? Dunno, but in the absence of Dr Fraud's couch, I'll tell you about my weekend instead of my mother.

So, with broken car - the problem is, how to get to Ipswich, a distance of roughly 150 miles from here, in time to meet a bunch of mates going to London for a show. The answer has two wheels and answers to the name of Kawaskai. So the night before, a bag was packed and motorcycling clothes laid out, fuel was placed in the tank so that no farting about was required in the morning. At a suitably early hour, the cat's dish was loaded for bear, a coffee was had to fuel and heat the rider, the MileEater was pointed in the right direction and a certain amount of twisting motion applied to the throttle control. Two hours fifty minutes later, in what was an equalled speed record I arrived on the borders of Ipp-land. Got up to Chez Kev where I'd arranged to garage the bike overnight, but realised I wasn't going to make the station in time. Although texts indicated that it wasn't the station at all but a "coach to London". Now at this point, it would have been useful to know that the coach was in fact a private minibus they'd hired, and it wasn't a scheduled eleven o clock departure, and could wait. But no. I made what I thought was a logical assumption, got on a train and spent another thirty five quid to meet the folks in the middle of the smoke.

Now, when I was an up and coming teenage beer monster down south in Ippo-on-Orwell, London was what you aspired to. That's where life was, money was, fame was, cosmopolitan society was. Nowadays, I have to go there every five years or so to remind myself how much I hate the place. When I was a kid on the tube system, I was facinated with those balls on springs that hang from the ceilings. Now I can reach them, they're no big thing. And what's with the picture of the drooler's grinning face on a charity poster on the tubes? Like we actually WANT to see that? Like that's going to have any affect other than "no thanks"? And why, in one of the busiest tube stations in the country, do they give the PA to some bloke with a West African accent who not even the late Dr Idi Amin could have understood? And why do they have only three guys serving tickets, with a dozen automated ticket machines, all with long queues, all with guys at the front saying "Ugh? What does this mean? How do I work this?". I know a song about that.....

Anyway. I'm digressing again. I do that when I'm ill. In fact I do that when I'm well. The city of London was indeed reached in good time, via the buses as the train line in between Ippo and Colchester was up on blocks. I struggled through crowds of persons, before strapping myself to a tube train device and heading across town; was supposed to be connecting with the Bakerloo at .... erm.... somewhere.... but the whole Bakerloo was closed to to vandalised trains. Necessary to replan. At this point we were close enough to the surface to get text messages, argh, everybody else is in the pub! Bastards! And now they're leaving to get to the theatre! Agh! No beer for me! Sod sod sod! And so.... Picadilly Circus was reached, the tube system was left, the A-Z was consulted and bad chest or no bad chest, a rapid run was undertaken to ensure lateness was not going to be a factor this day......

TBC.