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Otherwise known as Michelle’s eight-hour road to nowhere.

I’ve mentioned before that I frequently get into some kind of trouble when traveling, so I don’t know why it should surprise me to have found myself in exactly that position yet again. Sigh. But then I’m a glass half full kind of gal.

Here’s what happened.

Last Monday morning a family event was taking place in Sheffield, and I really wanted to be there, so on Sunday morning I set off to take a train to London, and from there I would get a coach for the journey up north. A coach, because I don’t really need to buy a car at the moment, hiring a car is very expensive, the cost of gas is astronomical (about three times more than it costs in the United States), plus one of my New Year’s resolutions is to try to help save resources and do my bit to save the planet.

First problem: on Sundays engineering work is carried out on the train line, so part of the line to London is closed and the train company buses its customers from Ingatestone to Newbury Park, near the very end of the Underground’s Central line tube. I had checked for this in advance and had given myself extra time for the journey, just in case of problems. The bus journey is supposed to take about 30/40 minutes, but . . . we got stuck in heavy traffic. An hour and a half later we arrived at Newbury Park.

Second problem: This meant that I arrived at London Victoria coach station just after the 3.30 pm coach to Sheffield had departed. Okay, thought I, I’d take the 5pm coach instead. Except the ticket seller told me it was full. But that still left the 6pm coach, so I bought a ticket for it and, after checking which gate the 6pm was due to depart from, I went off to spend some quality time browsing the bookstore in the nearby mall (it’s still a novelty to be in a country where I can buy English-language books), and get something to eat.

Around 5.15 I headed back to the coach station, and, after re-checking the electronic board, went to the appropriate gate and settled down for some serious reading (Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen’s The Science of Discworld - a fabulous book).

The coach pulled into the gate a little before 6pm, it was running a bit late, but fifteen minutes later we all lined up to get on and. . .

Third problem: Apparently there are two coaches to Sheffield at 6pm operated by two different providers, and guess what?

“You’re on the wrong coach,” the driver informed me as he checked my ticket.

“Are you sure?” I asked him, rather baffled and panicking a bit. “Because I checked the electronic board several times and I could only see one service to Sheffield listed for 6pm. ”

“You’re on the wrong coach,” he told me again. “Sorry. You’ll have to get off this coach.”

So I did, and when I re-checked the electronic board there were no 6pm coaches to anywhere listed because, of course, they’d already departed.

The next coach to Sheffield was 8pm, which would arrive somewhere around 12.30am if there were no problems on the motorway and the coach did the speed limit all of the way.

I am not a superstitious person, but at that point I decided that the Universe was trying to tell me something. I was cold and tired and fed up. So I turned around and headed for home.