Departure

I’m standing on my driveway with four bags, a huge coat, and a total lack of sleep.

Ten hours ago some alerts fired to let me know there was some sort of weird network event at one of Faelix’s clients. Sure enough my mobile phone rang a few moments later. Problems were isolated and confirmed to be the fault of the supplier, and were strangely reminiscent of a fault we’ve encountered once before where a huge chunk of configuration on the supplier’s equipment travels back through time and wrecks the service to Faelix’s client. Therefore the night was a sleepless one — not what I wanted given the day ahead of me.

Six o’clock approaches and I pack the remaining bags, double check the contents of the bags, and lock up. I triple-check the contents of the bags. Minutes pass… and then the sound of a diesel engine approaches: my taxi. I load up and we drive to Piccadilly. I get out of the car and immediately quadruple-check my bags because I’ve been fretting and worried that I might have forgotten something which I already know is safely packed.

At Piccadilly I’m met by my two travel companions and we board the 06:55 Virgin Train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston. We settle down in our three reserved seats, the only people sitting in our coach. The train begins to pull out of the station and the manager makes an announcement. Our train is to be delayed as we are diverted through the Midlands around an incident on the direct tracks. To anybody who has travelled this line before, the word “diversion” is the politically-correct euphemism for “delayed to the point of disaster”.

Perhaps I was correct in my earlier post: 2009 is going to be one of those kinds of years…