Xmas travel rhymes & rants...

Going away this Christmas? If so, it's time to start planning your journey.For a start, how are you travelling? If by train, have you rung the train enquiries call centre to check out the timetable, engineering works, likelihood of snow of a 'different kind' or any other potential causes of delay? When I say 'rung' them, I mean 'got through to anyone'  - you know, waited long enough to get an answer? Ah, you did wait long enough for someone to answer, but they still didn't? Hmm, well, how about just getting yourself down to the station and having a listen to the latest announcements - if you can hear them through that departing goods train?


Passenger announcement


The train due in at Platform One,
from Nottingham, has not begun.

The train due in at Platform Two
has been divided into two.

The train due in at Platform Three
has broken down at Coventry.

The train due in at Platform Four,
to Crewe, passed through an hour before.

The train due in at Platform Five
is cancelled, and will not arrive.

The train due in at Platform Six
is in a siding being fixed.

The train due in at Platform Seven
is approaching Platform Eleven.

The train due in at Platform Eight
will be 40 minutes late...
50, 60, two hours late...
will terminate at Billingsgate.
Passengers who wish to wait,
please check screen for next due date.


(By me, Kate Williams)


Well, how about jumping in the car, then? Oh, in the garage again, is it? After last Christmas's floods and snow drifts and ice and fog and hurricanes, no doubt. Expensive business, weather.

Costly things, cars are!


Driving, driving, driving car
down to garage - just that far.

Car up ramp; me down bank:
know the verdict though not heard it -
Oo! Ow! Aah!


(By me, Kate Williams)

But if your car's actually in one piece, driving should be no problem - apart from the inevitable Christmas delays, and another round of those so-called 'global warming' symptoms. So, next step: check out the post code of your destination, key it into your SatNav, and test it out. Mine is usually a route or two behind, for some mysterious reason, resulting in orders to 'turn left at Orchard Avenue' or 'right at The Crescent' mid-motorway run, or the reverse, to 'continue 11 miles on M4' while I'm actually negotiating a maze of high-hedged country tracks. But keep on the right side of her (or him): they have strong personalities, these SatNav voices, and moods too, if you ask me. Minds of their own anyway: that's a cert.

Sat Nag

'Turn right at the junction - RIGHT, I say! '
(Can't you see, I've chosen a different way?)

'Humph! ... Re-calculating! ' says she.
(I've pulled in for petrol. Leave me be!)

'Please do a U-turn - a U-TURN, I said! '
(Please YOU turn 3-D, for a clout on the head!)

(By me, Kate Williams)



Well, there's always the old bus - if you're not going too far - or is there?


Buses  (scroll down to bottom of 'Humorous' page)

Lunch till tea: no sign whatever...
Then a bunch of three in a line together.

(By me, Kate Williams)



Or stay at home?

Have a lovely Christmas, wherever you are!

More winter travel poems and Christmassy rhymes @ poemsforfun.wordpress.com


Kate