They’re good but not THAT good

June 27, 2006

6:10 PM – I leave from work and start my drive to the Cambridge train station. On the way to the station, I noted that I did not check for train delays, etc. I figured that I will look for any engineering works sign once I get to the station.

6:30 PM – I park my car and walk up to the train station.

6:33 PM – I arrive at the station. As my luck would have it, there is a problem. There are no trains to Kings Cross because of a fire near the station yesterday. I find that the next train to London would arrive at Finsbury Park around 8:15 PM. Once at Finsbury Park, I would have to go through Picadilly Line followed by Northern line to get to Camden Town. Thus the earliest time of arrival to LDA would be around 8:30 PM. To top it off, LDA has change of time schedule for this week and next week as well as different location for level 3.2 and 3.3 with 3.3 starting at 8 PM. Thus with best-case scenario, I would miss half the lesson by taking the train. I also take into consideration that the trip back to Cambridge would be slow and thus unpleasant.

6:50 PM – I get back to my car. I do a quick thinking. It would take at least 10 minutes to get to M11. Once on M11, it would take minimum of 75 minutes to get to Cecil Sharp House. Of course because of change of location, I may have more difficulty finding parking, etc. So even in ideal scenario, I would be 30 minutes late by car as well.

6:55 PM – I give up. Enough is enough.

7:20 PM – I decide to do a quick check. Could I have learned about the fire and the closure of Kings Cross station using internet? The answer turned out to be yes, but it would not have been a simple matter to find the answer. I could easily have done my usual check and missed the notice about the fire. The way the national rail website is organized, one has to use two separate methods to find out about scheduled delays (e.g. engineering works) and unscheduled delays (e.g. fires and other accidents). Among other things, I was amused to see a notice that said that travel to London was advised against for today – I wonder how people commuting to Kings Cross for work dealt with today’s problems?

I could think of it couple of ways. I lost a little over 8 pounds by missing the lesson or I gained about 15 pounds by not traveling to London (via train or car) for at most half a lesson as well as 3-5 hours of time lost for commuting. I think I’ll go watch Spain versus France, read a book, relax, etc.