Scargill

It’s been a little quieter the last few days after a hectic week of travel. After leaving my car at Newcastle airport for the week I came home on Friday by train which meant getting the Metro from Newcastle central station to the airport itself.

Alighting from the train at Newcastle central station I noted the new stiles were in operation – meaning they now have to have 4 employees standing around doing nothing instead of none – that’s progress. This was to be my first metro ride of the century! I used to use the metro years ago but have never had need for it since we moved out into the countryside to evade the crime in Newcastle.  I went down the lift from central station to the underground and waited the few minutes for the next Metro to the airport – very interesting… the first shock was to realise that the machines down there don’t take credit cards, only cash – and the only cash machine was out of order.  I managed to scrape enough coins together for a ticket and headed off down to the platform.

There was a multi-ringed couple standing next to me looking for all the world like a circus act. At one point the young guy pinched his girlfriend’s face (no idea why, I’m guessing boredom) at which point she yelled “Divn’t f***n pinch me f***n cheeky bas****d, f**k off” -  and that pretty much describes the level of their conversation as we alighted the metro for the airport – no conversations about share prices down here! Finding absolutely no-where to put my heavy bags (people arriving at train stations tend to have large bags so as they have travelled, but this doesn’t seem to have filtered down to the metro designers!) I had no option but to take up 2 seats – thankfully there were plenty –6pm peak time – no-one on the (no doubt expensive to run) Metro to the airport – see pic). It didn’t take long to realise that the entire carriage smelled of poo – I don’t even want to consider where that came from. 5000 stops later (or so it felt) we arrived at the airport. No lift but just a long up-hill walkway greeted me as I dragged my bags up to ground level. I missed the courtesy coach by a couple of ticks and so half a dozen of us stood outside freezing our parts off waiting for the next coach which duly arrived 10 minutes later and off home I went to warm up! You would think it more sensible to have a warning light INSIDE the airport – at least in the winter so people could stay WARM while waiting for the bus.

An enlightening experience – I still hate public transport.