Back From My Jollies

Germy: Ola! I are back from my holidays!

Mrs B:  Arse.

Helpful and Informative

Dear Miss Help and Information Desk,

I would like to point out that it is your job to be helpful and informative. The clue is in the title. I would also like to point out that, during my recent visit to York train station, you were neither helpful nor informative.


I would imagine you see a lot of people panicking about having missed their trains. I appreciate that you are probably sick of people asking you which train they need to get. You probably do not always feel like being helpful and / or informative, but as we have established this is your job.


I recently visited your desk because I had missed a train. I had been advised by a very angry ticket inspector that I needed to change at York train station and catch a connecting bus. I expected that this would be common knowledge. Therefore, when I asked you where I needed to catch my bus from, I did not expect you to look at me as though I were from another planet. I am not. I am from Newcastle. It is only an hour away. You advised me (in a very unhelpful tone) that I did not need to get a bus and that I should get a train to Donny. I did not know what Donny was. This is not unusual. People who are not from your planet do not necessarily understand your language. You did not explain further. In fact, you walked away for your break leaving someone equally unhelpful and uninformative in your place.


As a result, I left your desk feeling neither helped nor informed. I rather feel you failed at your job. I thought you would like to know this.


Kind Regards,


Mrs B x

Train Travel : The Joys

Don't get me wrong, I don't really have a problem with train travelling. There is only one aspect of it which I cannot tolerate: the toilet facilities. Facilities may be taking it a bit far. For those of you who have never set foot in a train toilet, allow me to enlighten you.

Wherever you are sitting on the train, you can absolutely guarantee that the toilets will be at the opposite end of the train. This forces you to consider whether you are really desperate to use the facilities. Once you have examined the state of your desperation and decided to brave the facilities, you then have to make the terrifying journey down the train. This will invariably result in you being thrown from side to side until your internal organs feel as though they are embroiled in a deathly game of ping-pong and you are feeling as though you have had one too many glasses of vino. This is not the worst of it.

When you eventually navigate your way to the facilities, you have to get into the cubicle. This may sound simple. It is not. The buttons on the doors are designed to fool you in such a way that you are never entirely sure whether or not you have managed to lock the toilet door. Thus, your trip to the facilities becomes a kind of adventure game in which you never quite know whether you will be finished before a desperate stranger opens the door on you. Equally, you never quite know whether you will be opening the door on an embarrassed stranger when you attempt to enter the facilities.

If you manage to get into the toilet you are faced with a less than desirable situation. The smell is inevitably unpleasant. There is almost always paper all over the floor, and there is always (without exception) unidentifiable liquid on the floor. I don't need to elaborate here, do I? It is literally a minefield.

You then have to negotiate sitting down in the facilities whilst the train is in motion. You are specifically forbidden from peeing (or worse) whilst you are parked in a station. This is for one reason and one reason alone: the person who invented train facilities has an evil sense of humour. Sitting down on a toilet on a moving train surrounded by unimaginables is (or should be) an art form. You should get a certificate if you can aim in these circumstances (clearly, most people cannot judging from the state of the floors).

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is the end of the trauma. You would be wrong. You have to negotiate flushing and washing. This is not pretty. The water splashes everywhere. The soap is questionable. The paper towels have inevitably always run out. All the while, you are acutely aware that you are standing in someone else's mess.

If you've managed to make it this far, all you have left is the ping-pong walk back to your seat. If you can find your seat again, that is. 

Pillow Talk: Spinning According To Mr B

The Scene: Falling asleep at 1am with Mr B telling me about a song they played during his spinning class.

Mr B: "It went like this. Buf*. Buf. Buf. Buf. Climbing up the hill. Buf. Buf. Buf. Buf. More resitance. Buf. Buf. More resistance. Buf. Buf. Bof. At the top now. Buf. Take the resistance off. Buf. Ahhhhhhhhhh rest time. No.Bufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbuf (singing) WAITING FOR A STAR TO FALL**... Bufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbufbuf."


* NB Where "Buf" is supposed to indicate the beat in the music. Mr B does have his own special language.
** Also the song is "Waiting for a star to fall" by Boy Meets Girl, in case it wasn't clear.

Press Pause ...

Dear Readers,

I'm off. Temporarily. Mr B and I are moving house. We complete tomorrow. We also lose our internet tomorrow for an unspecified amount of time. I'll be back with plenty of posts saved up.

Don't miss me too much.

Much love,

Mrs B xx

The STF Factor

I owe this blog post (unreservedly) to the lovely CA for her invention of The STF Factor, a measurement I will always be grateful for.

The STF (or Stressed To F@ck) Factor is measured on a scale of one to ten. It started off as a measurement of house selling and buying stress, but has become very useful in a variety of situations.

On a recent visit to Hull, for example, my STF Factor reached 50 out of 10. Yes, I am fully aware that this is off the scale. Allow me to elaborate. I had to make a train journey in two parts, changing at York station. I had to leave the office at 4pm to catch the 5pm train, picking up my tickets on route. The commute from my office to the station is around 30 minutes. Due to a variety of unnecessary interruptions about lottery tickets, places to eat and such like, I did not escape the office until 4.15pm. I marched my way to the metro station, only to be stopped there by an elderly woman needing directions. Whilst swearing on the inside, I allowed my nicer self to give directions. I ran to the platform. It was 4.25pm. The metro was running late.

By this point, my STF Factor was around 5.

I panicked all the way to the train station, but managed to get there in time and get my tickets and hot chocolate (with marshmallows and whipped-cream) before walking hurriedly to my train.

My STF Factor reduced to 2. The chocolate helped.

It all went horribly wrong after the train passed Darlington. The train began to slow down. I thought we weren't quite at York, but did not think that we were stopping at any other stations. The announcement was inaudible. So, I asked the woman sat next to me which station we were pulling into. This was my first mistake.

My second mistake was assuming that the two people sat opposite, or any of the people walking past would have taken pity on the girl (ie. me) who was screaming "I didn't think we were at York yet" whilst trying to throw all my things in my bag.

My third mistake was trusting these people. I rushed off the train with my hands full of things, which I shoved in my pockets whilst putting on my coat and moving away from the train. It was a comedy moment. The doors closed. The train pulled away. I turned ...

This was when I discovered I was not at York. I was at Northallerton. For those that cannot comprehend the horror of this, let it suffice to say that Northallerton is the middle of nowhere. The station is, in fact, a hut with a toilet and a lone ticket machine. York on the other hand is large, full of places to eat and drink and, most importantly, the place where I was meant to be catching my connecting train. The next train from Northallerton to York was 45 minutes away. 

My STF Factor was off the scale. 

I called Mr B and screamed. I don't know what I thought this would achieve. He is not superman. He was very sympathetic, but unable to pull a train out of a hat (or out of anywhere else for that matter).

Needless to say by the time the train arrived in Nowhere-ton, I had missed my connection. I had to get the next train to York. Then wait. Then get another train. Then wait. Then get on a bone-shaker train to my final destination, where I drowned myself in the largest chocolate pudding known to man - but only to reduce my STF Factor to a more manageable level you understand. 

Tomato Sauce : It's A Classy Issue

Mr B heard on the radio (Radio 4 no less, therefore it must be true) that your social class is defined by the place in which you store your tomato ketchup.

You're looking at this now thinking that I have actually lost the plot aren't you? Go on, admit it. I am not even kidding.

According to the authority that is The Radio, if you keep your ketchup in the cupboard, you are working-class. If you keep it in the fridge, you are middle-class. If you don't know where your servant keeps it, you are upper-class.

Under this philosophy, Mr B claims to be middle-class. I maintain, however, that I have never seen the ketchup in the fridge (and more importantly, if it has been there before, it better hadn't be in future - I do not want it contaminating my food with it's disgusting-ness).

You may have gathered I do not like tomato ketchup. This makes me so classy I am officially off the scale...