I thought a railway image would be the only one that would be a true reflection of my day today. This is the most photogenic railway image I could find while tearing through London on my way back from a meeting.

The journey began at 6.30am, travelling 300 miles by train and tube in one direction, followed by a two hour meeting with (very nice) clients. It’s not in any sense that this was a chore from that perspective – this lot are just about the nicest you can get in the client department. Then, after two hours of a conference room somewhere 50 or so miles north of London, I was dropped (thanks Ginny) at the station to do the whole lot in reverse, arriving back home at 10.30pm tonight.

So, it’s been a sixteen hour working day with a round trip of 600 miles thrown in just to make sure I don’t go soft on a sixteen hour day with no travel!

Could I have done anything different? I had three choices:

1. do the journey there and back and spend the night in my own home and my own bed
2. do one way today then the other way back in the morning – which on the surface of it seems like a plan BUT I have a zillion things to do tomorrow and can’t afford another half a day on a train AND I wouldn’t get to spend the night in my own home and own bed
3. jack the job in and not go to London any more at all…..which I won’t do for a variety of reasons that I’m not about to go into partly because I’m so tired though to be honest, I hope people think of me as anything but a quitter.

So, whether or not it seems sensible, I chose the first option.

So, you get the undoubted splendour of St Pancras station, currently undergoing refurbishment and it’s starting to look fab. It’s one of the great triumphs of Victorian architecture in my view and I am jolly glad it’s still standing – I suspect there have been a number of plots to tear it down in the past and replace it with a monstrosity like Kings Cross or Euston – actually – I have no idea why the original stations were torn down in those cases – I suppose they may well have been bombed but I don’t know…..come on Ray – you’ll know this one.

I do love this place, along with Waterloo, Paddington and many of the Underground stations. They are charming reminders of a time when beauty was more important than saving money – they’d bung on a few twiddly bits just to make it look lovely with seemingly no thought for the cost. Hurrah for the Victorians (in this respect anyway).

Last year, people were smashing our place up!