A quick trip to London...

I was at work this morning, but only for three hours as I'd taken some time off to accompany Sophie down to London, where she had an interview.

I'd been warned that the summer school holidays were busy and they were right! I had almost non-stop calls until I left at 11am, giving me very little chance to do any other admin work! Keith had dropped me off this morning and Sophie met me in the reception area at 11am as I'd put a top in the car to change into. We didn't have a lot of time so we went straight to the train station and caught the 11.50am service to Euston, which only stopped at Milton Keynes and Watford.

I'm always amazed at how quickly we can get down to our capital and today was no exception. Before we knew it we had arrived and we took two different underground lines to get to Hammersmith. It wasn't really the best day to travel to London as it was stiflingly hot and the tube was crowded. As we were early we headed to a nearby Caffe Nero and enjoyed cold drinks and chocolate rice cakes to keep us going! Sophie was becoming more and more nervous, but as she'd already spoken to the owner of the company on the phone, I just told her to relax and be herself.

Twenty minutes before her interview we walked to the offices and I was pleasantly surprised at how lovely the surroundings were, with little places to sit and relax. It wasn't far from the underground and nearby there were shops and restaurants.

Luckily, I was able to sit and wait in the reception area of the building while Sophie had her interview. She was a bit shocked to discover that three people were going to see her and they asked her all the usual interview questions, but the owner of the company, who she'd spoken to on the phone, kept interrogating her about the commute and asked if she would re-locate. I know Sophie wouldn't dream of it at the moment but she said it was only an hour on the train and they were quite flexible with the time of working.

She came back down to Reception looking a little disappointed and had reacted the same as I did when I went for the court usher job. She was particularly worried that they kept going on about the commute, as if Northampton was out in the back of beyond! I know that thousands of people commute down to London!

We made the decision to try and get back to Euston to catch a train before the peak travel kicked in, i.e. after 5pm. The underground seemed even hotter and I sat and melted as we chatted about the interview. We arrived at Euston at about 4.30pm but there were no trains going to Northampton before 5pm. We had no choice but to wait for the 7.15pm train.

Euston was teeming with people and it was hot and stuffy. There was no way we were going to sit it out there so we went outside and I googled a pub nearby, called The Crown and Anchor in Drummond Street. We finally managed to find it and were delighted to find that a) it was almost empty and b) that they were doing food.

We sat at a table by the open doors and enjoyed a very pleasant couple of hours drinking a toasted lager and eating a burger (Sophie) and sausage and mash (me) which were delicious. It was a much better way of passing the time rather than sitting in the hot, cramped and noisy station!

Back at Euston we waited to see which platform our train left from and then there was the usual mad stampede to get on. Luckily we managed to get seats across the aisle and at least the train was cooler! Before we knew it we were home and Keith was waiting to meet us. It was heaven to get home, have a cool shower and relax until bedtime!