Summer at last

Not just warm, but positively hot in London yesterday. Clear blue skies and a wash of Sahara-like air drove the temperature up into the higher 20s. A day for sitting by a running brook under the shade of willows with the skylarks above and a cool drink to hand. Or, as fate would have it, a day for coming down to Waterloo underground to find an overcrowded Bakerloo thanks to a suspended Jubbly service. I managed to squeeze into the last available seat on my northbound and was able to admire the many tense and frustrated faces of the crowds at Oxford Circus, no doubt swollen by non-Jubbliers [not sure about this: Ed] from Bond Street, who realised as my train arrived that very few of them would be able to board it.

And so to Baker Street where fresh hordes of ex-Jubblies (I'll find the right word for them one day) joined the normal Met travellers. I mentioned it was hot didn't I? At least the first train out was one of the (not quite so new now) "S" stock with air-conditioning. And, as it was packed and there was barely anywhere to stand except in the bit between the carriages that lurches and heaves with each bend, just as well. At Finchley Road they were running a northbound shuttle on the Jubbly starting from the southbound platform, since no trains  were going further south at that time, so the Jubblistas [I don't think that works too well: Ed] had some relief. Not so your correspondent who stood till Harrow, there to change trains, and catch one of the dear old, but not air-conditioned, "A" stock and  who still had to stand until Eastcote at which point it wasn't worth sitting down.

Ah well, I am writing these lines from home as today is not a working day and the weather is just as glorious. I shall watch the Tfl site with some interest, not to say schadenfreude and should there be a recurrence of yesterday's misfortunes, I shall raise a sympathetic libation to my fellow passengers.