And yet more rather dull shifts. That, combined with Internet problems most of this week, is why I haven't been updating... at least, that's my excuse!

I've signed up to go on an Open Day at the Victoria Line depot, for people who are considering becoming drivers, which takes place shortly before my annual leave at the end of next month. I'm quite excited about it. Also, on Wednesday, I felt fairly miserable after work and called my partner and told him I'd be mucking around on trains instead of going home, and meeting him at work so we could travel back together. I hopped on a train at Arnos, where I had been working, and when we got to Bounds green we sat there... and sat there... and sat there... and eventually got going again. When we got to Turnpike Lane, same thing, we sat there and the driver told us there was a signal failure in the Green Park area - although it did turn out that it was Caledonian Road, not Green Park, hence why it was affecting us so badly. We sat there for a while longer and I eventually worked up the courage to go down to the driver and see what was going on, and he invited me up into the cab, so I got a short-but-long ride in the front down to Finsbury Park, which was very educational.

I took the Victoria line to Euston (this had been my plan even without the signal problems) and took the Northern Line from there (after helping a woman and child find the platform they needed) to Waterloo. There, I picked up the Jubilee to Canada Water and changed to the East London line until Shadwell, where I helped someone else find the DLR station, and got the DLR out to Poplar, switched to a Stratford train, and went up to Stratford and back, another switch at Poplar to get to Westferry and meet my partner. There were no issues on any of those lines but, of course, when we got back to Bank to get the Northern Line the platform was packed with no train for 5 minutes, so the platform was getting worse and worse. Judging by the sound of the announcements from the poor CSA doing platform duties on the adjacent platform, it was equally bad that side! We squeeeezed into the next train and changed at Kings Cross for the Piccadilly, where we discovered there was a service suspension due to a passenger under a train further westwards that was causing severe delays. We again squeezed onto a packed train and at Holloway I turned to Him and said, "I bet this terminates at Arnos Grove...". Sure enough a few minutes later the driver announces that he's very sorry, but he's just been told the train will terminate at Arnos. Of course when we get to Arnos the next Eastbound is about ten minutes away... we did wander up and contemplate catching the bus but for some reason they still haven't replaced the 298 timetables at the bus stop, so we didn't know how long we'd have to wait, and in the end we headed back down and caught the next East to Cockfosters, and managed to get a bus shortly after arriving there.

I got the chance to actually go down on the platform today and play at directing customers around through my amazing PA announcements. I got a "Thank you for the nice clear announcement!" from one woman, who I don't think was being sarcastic, and an "Oh, really?" after my announcement that a train was going to Uxbridge, followed by being pounced on from behind. Luckily for the service it turned out to be my partner, not some drunken nutter. Luckily I also remembered to take my thumb off the press to talk button.

This entry probably wouldn't be a complete without a link to this BBC News article: Police Avert Car Bomb Carnage.