Dom Davis (The Blog)

As part of the improvement works at Morrisons they’ve repainted the zebra crossing. Hopefully this will reduce the number of people who are surprised by me stepping out into the road leading to the carpark.

I had this problem at Colchester station too. It seems the instant you put a zebra crossing on private land it no longer counts. This is why I pointedly stare down the drivers as I approach the road… and why I force them to break and let me pass. If I can’t make eye contact then I’ll approach the car and shout, swear and point at the zebra crossing they’ve just violated in order to ensure they know they’re in the wrong.

The 17:45 to Sheringham usually departs from platform 4. On occasion it goes from platform 5 and, rarely, it goes from 6. Yesterday initially claimed to be a normal day. The departure screen said 4, the usual suspects were stood at 4, so I went and stood in my usual spot.

At this juncture it helps to understand that I have the type of headphone you screw into your ears. It means I can play my music at half the volume and hear it well as it blocks out the outside world. It also means I can’t hear a thing except my music so I’m oblivious to announcements. This in itself is not a huge problem, I just keep an eye on others.

Yesterday I noted people suddenly looking confused, a little bit of wondering about and some checking of the departure screens. Sensing trouble I pulled one earphone out and went to go investigate the departure boards myself. They said 4. A man walking up the platform said 6a. He looked like a rail employee (or more likely subcontractor) so I figured he may know. I headed to platform 6.

As I wondered round a ruddy great big intercity parked at platform 4. This confirmed that we wouldn’t be leaving from there and the presence of a train on platform 6 made me think I’d been told correctly. The indicator board still said 4, but what did it know?

I, and many others piled on the train with much “Is this the Sheringham train?”. This was met with answers ranging from the positive “yes”, the worried “I hope so” and the contradictory “No, this is the Yarmouth train”. Oh.

Given more than one person believed it was the Yarmouth train we adopted the commuter trait of standing in the door. This allows us to see the boards (Sheringham platform 4, Yarmouth platform 6) and listen to announcements, which took that moment to proclaim that the 17:45 Sheringham service was now leaving from platform 6.

Yarmouth people off, Sheringham people on, Yarmouth people now looking very confused.

Finally the train driver piped up, this wasn’t the Sheringham train, it was the Yarmouth train, the Sheringham train would leave from platform 6a. He also helpfully pointed out that despite the fact that we were next to platform 5a this was platform 6b and we should get on the train that would pull up in front of this one.

Right, Sheringham people off, Yarmouth people on, Sheringham people up the the further extremities of platform 6. Given we were beyond the roofed area of the platform there were no more indicator screens to look at, but we were regularly told over the tannoy that the 17:45 train for Sheringham would leave from platform 6. Not 6a, 6. No mention of the Yarmouth train.

In the end it fell to the train drivers who, when both trains were in, clearly stated which train the one you were on was and directed wayward and lost people to the other train. If it weren’t for them I suspect there would be a lot of angry people heading back into Norwich to start their journey again, this time on the correct train.

I’d forgotten that the river path from the station to work is only open from dawn until dusk. I have vague memories of walking the non scenic route when I first started work but that could just have been because I’d not found the river route. Anyway, last night I had to deviate mid way as two nice chaps in high-vis jackets told me the gates further down were locked. It wasn’t great weather yesterday so I just assumed it was flooding or something.

Today I was greeted by the same blokes even further up the path. Again, the gates were closed they said. It was then I twigged what was going on. As the days grow shorter and dusk falls earlier each day they’ve been making their journey along the river earlier and earlier until they were now locking the gates before I could get through them. What with the clock changes next week there will be no more river walks home for me in the evenings until spring. Hopefully I’ll still get my morning walk though.

My commute these days has started including a quick visit to the pub, which, at 8:20 in the morning, is not what you’d call normal. You’ll be pleased to know that this frequenting of a hostelry twice a day is not the beginning of alcoholism, or even by choice.

As you may recall I take the river route into work. I’ve no idea if it’s the fastest, but it’s the most pleasant. Entry (or egress if I’m going home) to the river walk is by way of a gate into the beer garden of the Compleat Angler and then down some steps. Throughout the week there has been work on the outside of the Compleat Angler which is now blocking that gate. Since blocking entry to a public right of way is generally frowned on and alternative method of getting to the beer garden and down the steps (or up the steps and out of the beer garden depending on direction) has been provided. This involves going through the front door of the pub, into the bar, hanging a left at the fruit machine and going out the side door.

It’s a minor detour, but a bit of and odd one which leaves me a little discombobulated each time I have to make it. I’m hoping that, by Monday, it’ll all be sorted and I can go back to my normal route and just have to worry about dodging cyclists, free range dogs, insects and the odd falling branch.

These days I’ve taken to sorting out my todo list, doing a load of admin and a bit of programming on the train to work. It’s the only way I can even hope to keep up with everything that needs to be done at work. It certainly helps that I now do 90% of my work on the laptop¹.

This morning I got on the train, grabbed a table seat² got out the laptop and hit big confusion. There were apps running that I hadn’t started, folders open that I hadn’t opened and files that I didn’t recognise. I’d picked up Zo’s laptop, a near identical one to mine. Crud.

My todo lists both sync to my phone, email and calendars are handled by exchange, code is all on a server and I could, in theory, move back to using my desktop for the day supplemented by my phone… or I could get off the train, go home, get my laptop and head into work a hour late.

I chose the latter; after all, I was in an hour early yesterday, I can work from home while waiting for the train and I’d probably get more done that way than ducking about with the other option. Teach me not to check which one I’d picked up

¹If anyone knows where I can get my hands on BEA weblogic 8.1 for AIX (don’t ask) I could make it 100%.
²Be interesting to see if I can still get a table when school starts again.

I needed to get to work early today so got the 06:46 instead of my usual train. That time in the morning is rush hour for Cromer station because both platforms have a trains at them.

Look at the TV screen, Sheringham service on platform 1, Norwich platform 2.

Look at the train on platform 1, says Norwich on the front. Train on platform 2 doesn’t have something on the outside to tell you where it’s going but the display in the carriage says Sheringham.

So which is which?¹ It’s little wonder the last time I got that train I got on the wrong one.

¹The correct answer is Sheringham platform 1, Norwich platform 2 (as per the TV screen). Barring incident the trains always leave from those platforms except for the first one where a big (i.e. 3 carriage train) comes into platform 1, divides and the rear carriage heads to Norwich and the front two go to Sheringham. But you need to know that, it’s not stated anywhere.

Placid though “Riverside walk” may sound my daily commute is fraught with peril and obstacles. If it’s not Killer bees, renegade cyclists or loose canines who are patently not on leads (despite the signs) it’s the trees. Use of the start (or end, depending which way you’re going) of the walk involves navigation round some rather lovely, rather low hanging branches. Not so lovely when it’s wet, the grass is muddy and walking through or under the branches is asking for a drenching. Of course today it’s dry and the council seem to have tidied up the path during the day, including trimming the trees somewhat, making the problem much less pronounced than it was when I saw them this morning. Bloody typical

You must be at lease this short to use this path

With thanks to the random lady who has no idea the person behind was surreptitiously photographing her ducking in order to get an idea of scale

Knowing full well it was going to rain today (the rain falling on my head when I left the house this morning gave it away) I decided to take my big brolly and see if I could keep dry, blog and walk in a straight line all at the same time. The answer is ‘no’. I found this out on the way to the station during my usual morning Facebook and the phone was still getting wet despite the big brolly.

Being the selfless kind of guy I am I forewent watching my James May Toy Stories and fired off a blog entry in the comfort on the train. So why, you may ask, am I blogging now and what has all this got to do with cyclists? The answer is simple: it’s not raining. Since it’s not raining I can happily walk along, headphones on, head down, phone taking up most of my vision completely unaware of anything more that a few meters in front of me and nothing behind me. Given the speed I walk the only thing wanting to overtake is cyclists. Since the path is clearly marked with signs saying ‘no cyclists’ (it used to be even more clearly marked but people keep destroying the signs) I don’t have to feel guilty that I can’t hear their pathetic bells pinging away¹ or that I force them onto the grass to get round me. They shouldn’t be there and all the pathetic pinging isn’t going to stop me blogging. Nope, it’ll make me do it more because that’s just the kind of guy I am

¹ The air horns, on the other hand, are enough to scare the hell out of anyone. I challenge anyone not to jump when one of those goes off half a meter behind you when you’re not expecting it, no matter how loud or good your headphones.

My commute into work involves the use of a very rural railway line. Two trains ply the route, much of which is single track, pass at North Walsham where there is a handy bit of doubled up track for precisely that, get to the end of the line, turn round, come back. Lather, rinse, repeat. This setup has some advantages; except for a tiny bit at the Norwich end, there is only ever one other train that can get in your way (and they can and do turf everyone off to wait for the next train and send the empty train back if things get too out of whack); similarly signal failures aren’t a massive problem as there are only 2 trains to co-ordinate; also it’s a quiet line so I always get a seat, often by myself. The downside is when things go wrong you can easily get delayed an hour waiting for the next train and if a train goes out of service all he’ll breaks loose. Especially if it breaks down on a bit of single track, unable to move so nothing can get past.

This morning the train glided [glode?] into the station without the usual rumble of it’s diesel/electric engine. This is never good. 10 seconds later there is a roar, the engine restarts, all appears to be well. 5 minutes later the engine cuts out again, we glide into Roughton Road station, I start to wonder if we’ll leave. Lo and behold the engine restarts, big roar, we pull off…

200 meters outside of Gunton engine dies. Coast in. Restart…

And so on at every station. Most disconcerting. So the question is was this a defective train which limped from Cromer to Norwhich; a novice driver who kept stalling the engine; or some new operating procedure to save money?

It was with some trepidation I left the office this afternoon and checked the train times. I had visions of a failed train blocking the line, or one train out of service meaning chaos and me getting home late. Thankfully all appears to be working fine. The train has arrived, the engine is running and (touch wood) in 45 minutes or so it’ll disgorge me onto Cromer station, platform 1.