I'm Peppa Pig (oink!)

Image credit: mum-friendly.co.uk

Had a day off yesterday and, together with my wife, kids and sister, drove down to Peppa Pig World near the south coast.

My daughter's been fascinated by Peppa for months now, and we thoguht we'd better get down to the attraction before she went off her.  Despite a slow start to getting into the spirit of things, she was soon deleriously happy to be flying Miss Rabbit's helicopter, riding in Peppa's hot air balloon, and driving a tractor (from no episode I've ever seen - and I've seen them all, many, many times).  It was a good day out, though ridiculously expensive for what it was.  Still, she has some great stories to tell all her friends at the childminder's today!

So, on to the travel updates.  Tuesday night's journey home was sadly not as trouble-free as I would have hoped: a six-minute delay on the tube from Paddington to Waterloo caused me to miss the train I'd intended (no explanation offered).  Add to that a 22-minute delay on the connecting train to Hersham due to a broken-down train at Vauxhall, and I arrived 48 minutes later than I should have.  TfL owes me another £120.

This morning was more like it: despite leaving Hersham a minute late, the train was two minutes early arriving in Waterloo.  This allowed me to get an earlier connecting tube to Paddington, but since that one was delayed by three minutes, I still only got to work when I should have (according to Journey Planner), rather than early.  And there's still £5 to add for the two-minute Paddington penalty.

All in all, 50 minutes and £125 to the slate.

Boring

Delayed by three minutes on the train from Hersham to Waterloo this morning, all delay accrued beyond Surbiton (and therefore TfL's fault).  Had to get a later connecting tube to Paddington as a result, itself a further minute delayed, owing to overcrowding at Paddington.  And another two minutes for the Paddington penalty charge.  In all, I was therefore five minutes late for £12.50.

Other news is boring today.

Not every Oyster contains a pearl

Last night's journey back came with a 'tiny' one-minute delay on the tube from Paddington to Waterloo.  Unfortunately, it was enough to make me miss my connecting fast train to Hersham, so it ended up costing me (and therefore TfL) 26 minutes and £65.

In other news, Oyster Card was smugly congratulating itself on another anniversary recently.  I don't think I covered it on this blog, but it was the usual stuff along the lines of 'everyone else in the world is jealous of how awesome Oyster is and, in fact, the number one reason for tourism and general permanent immigration is people wanting to use the Oyster system'.

Anyway, Oyster's just been rapped on the knuckles by the watchdog London Travelwatch for being overcomplicated and overcharging passengers.  Have to say, I didn't get the overcomplicated charge, but then I didn't know about the pink and yellow readers confusion - it's not something that's ever affected me.  Actually, given I'm just learning about it now, it's probably affected me loads, but it's too late to do anything about that now!

'Sir' Peter Hendy, TfL chief, also seems to have recanted a whiny justification of his Olympic bonus from the official annual report of his organisation before it was published.  Methinks the lady doth protest to much.