Eight years ago I worked for one year at a little Catholic primary school in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.  It was a lovely little school filled with gorgeous teachers, teaching assistants and office staff and thanks to the wonder of Facebook I’ve been to keep in touch with them.  Over the years I’ve managed to pop back to Rugby a few times and all the ladies make a huge effort to come together for a lovely luncheon.

Yesterday was one of those days.  However it was also “One of those days – *heavy sigh*”

I booked my train up to Rugby a few days ago thinking I was doing the right thing, but I had booked for a specific train time rather than just a ticket to use on any train at any time.

I then missed my first train to get from home to Euston Train Station by about 30 seconds, then there was works on the underground causing me to have to zig zag all over London to get to Euston.  I had to pick up my ticket and naturally there were 12,000 people all lining up trying to get their tickets – selfish!

Got my ticket with about 4 minutes to spare, turned and RAN to the gate….. as I approached the platform a huge gate with “Virgin Trains – These gates close 2 minutes before the train departs” emblazoned on it and the gate closed, locking me out.  Sweating, I let go of a few choice words before heading back up to the throng of people to work out my next move.

Was I meant to go to Rugby today?  Were there forces working against me?  What had I done to deserve this?

Cut a long story short – I got the next train and assured the ladies that I would be there a little late and all was fine, except that I only got to spend a very short amount of time there.

Here are those lovely ladies…

Liz, Pam, Pat, Kaye, Polly, Me, Pat, Jane, Marie and Karen.

Absent: Mandy & Magda (where were you two?) Lee (who did come to lunch, but we thought of taking the photo after you’d gone), Tori (away, climbing mountains), Emily (busy with gorgeous baby) and Rebecca (lives in New Zealand!) – ladies, you were missed.

After lunch Polly, Liz and I tried to break into the school…… just kidding Karen!  We just went and looked from the gate.  It’s possibly we did set off an alarm though – we can’t be sure.

It was short, but sweet ladies.  Always nice to see your smiling faces.

xxx