Back to Basics on the Piccadilly

As both Mrs.Commuter and me had a day off today, we decided to pop into London and drift around the Victoria and Albert Museum. This sort of low-pressure visit is very enjoyable - nothing particular to worry about seeing, no time limits, leaving when we felt like it - but of course it necessitated using the Piccadilly. The outbound journey was fine; we checked on the net and reached the platform just as our chosen train arrived. Coming home was pot luck. It seemed too good to be true when the first train at South Kensington was not only Uxbridge-bound, but had seats aplenty. It was. It turned into a Northfields and we had to wait at Acton Town [oh the horrific memories: Ed] for a Rayners Lane train thus enforcing a further wait for the Met back to beautiful Ruislip. And, just as it was all those years ago when I used to travel daily on this line to work, the indicators at Acton were singularly unhelpful, showing just the next inbound train and not those behind it, and getting it wrong anyway so that when we arrived the board said Uxbridge and the driver had to contradict it. God help anyone with a poor command of English. There was no explanation for the change of route but of course there were the usual announcements about a good service. Business as usual, really.