London to San Francisco - part 1

We had 5 minutes to catch our train to London, and the fact that we were 6 minutes from the station and stuck behind a tractor hadn't gone entirely unnoticed in the car. There was what you could describe as a bit of an atmosphere; a subtle whiff of tension in the air...

"Aaaargh! Mum - we're not gonna make it! This sucks! I HATE stupid tractors! Gah... What's the point?" I whimpered manfully.

"It's not like it's the end of the world honey - we can just catch the next train to London. They run every half an hour; it's not a big deal..."

My quiet sobbing drowned out Tasha's reassurances.

Mum stayed silent, a steely glint in her eye. The tractor turned off. Mum floored it.

.....................

We drew up at the station at the same time as the train and put our hastily devised plan into action. Tasha dived out of the car and started sprinting towards the self-service ticket machine, whilst Mum raced the car to the London-bound platform and the train let out a whistle to announce its arrival. I leapt out, grabbing all of our bags, and ran to an open carriage door.

Meanwhile, on the opposite platform, Tasha was stuck behind a slow old lady who couldn't figure out the ticket machine. I pleaded with the guard to hold the train for us, my mum shrieked across the tracks for Tasha to hurry up, and a train full of people trying to get to London quietly gave all three of us evil looks out of the windows.

And so it was that our six month, once in a lifetime around the world trip got underway. Exhausted, sweaty and stressed before we even left Totnes, we blew kisses to my mum out the window and collapsed into our seats.

We were finally off.