I commented yesterday on my terrible start to the day and how events later in the day made up for it. I’ve had a similar day today, although with less up-side.

The weather was as disgusting and horrible as yesterday but I was forced to stand in the pounding rain for quite a long time because the ticket machine for the car park at the railway station was faulty so the only way of avoiding a very big fine and or clamping was to pay for the parking by phone. The 11-digit phone number was displayed in one place, on the side of the machine facing away from the only shelter from the rain, the four-digit code to identify the location of the car park, ditto. Trying to see through my steamed up, rain covered glasses to punch the numbers into my phone proved virtually impossible and it took me three attempts to get the phone number right. Then I couldn’t hear the instructions on the phone as to what to do next. I tried to find a pen to write down the numbers so I could go to some shelter to do the job but in my panic and my desire to keep the contents of my bag dry I couldn’t put my hand on a pen. I eventually got the numbers into the phone in the right order and then I had to do the same with my credit card details – a 16-digit number, followed by a three-digit number, also in the pouring rain. Eventually I got the job done.

The train was pulling into the station by this point so I charged onto the platform just in time to get on it before it left but as I did, my phone, still in my hand, beeped a text message. I discovered that I needed to text my car’s registration number to complete the transaction. I was on a train to Plymouth and my car was in the station car park and I don’t know its registration number. I managed to wipe enough rain from my specs and my phone to call DM, who hadn’t left for work yet. I couldn’t hear him. I called him 5-6 times and the same problem happened each time. Eventually I managed to get through to him and he rummaged around in the drawer looking for the registration number of the car and I was able to send the text. In total I reckon it took 9-10 phone calls and two texts to get the job done, which will put paid to the tenner of credit I put on my phone a month ago. (My last credit to my phone of £30 lasted me two years!)

I realised at this point as the panic to get the job done subsided, that despite wearing a waterproof coat, I was wet through to my underwear, as were the contents of my rucksack and I looked very much like a drowned rat. Add to this the fact that I had to sit around in sopping wet clothes all day and a pre-existing head cold that’s been going on for days meant the pleasure of making a torch out of an old diet coke bottle with a home-made switch was distinctly less jolly than the delight of the shaggy dog story of yesterday. DM says I should sue the car parking company if I go down with flu…