Wednesday 8 February 2012

The only way to travel

Tuesday saw me head north on a store visit to our new branch in Chester.

Store visiting is one of my favourite parts of my job as not only is it a chance to get out of the office for a day (and who wouldn't love that) but it's also a great opportunity to meet the branch staff and really get a feel for the stores. My day started off pretty standard; an early start followed by a freezing wait at Euston for them to announce the platform, so far, so normal. As I rushed with the other commuters in the scramble to get a seat I glanced at my ticket to check my seat number. J 15. Hmmm, I thought as I passed the first class carriage, carriage J, that can't be right. So I scrambled into a standard carriage and battled against the other passengers for that elusive window seat, before realising that pretty much all the seats were booked and I would indeed have to go off and search for seat J 15. It was at this point I actually looked at my ticket, First Class, it said on the top. Now, I have no idea how this happened. I can only assume that I caught the man at National Rail Business Travel on a good day because this is definitely not what I booked. I battled my way against the flow of angry passengers desperate for a seat and entered the quiet and serene world of the Virgin trains first class carriages. I even checked with the waitress (!) just in case there had been some mistake, as she came round to ask what breakfast I would like, but she assured me I was in the right seat. Well, all thoughts of eating my Weight Watchers packed lunch, that was discreetly hidden in my bag, went out the window. Don't get me wrong, I didn't gobble down a breakfast, I just didn't eat my packed lunch out of sheer embarrassment. Eating a homemade lunch in a first class carriage surrounded by businessmen in suits, I mean, who does that? To be honest the whole journey felt a bit surreal, kind of like Audrey Tautou in the Chanel advert, but a lot less chic. And if Audrey drank ribena and was switching between reading a copy of Glamour magazine and studying her store visit reports in an effort to look intellectual.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...