Europe 2023, August 18

Last run in Birmingham in the early morning again, this time ran from the canals over to Aston Hall near Villa Park, it's only a small loop around the boundary so had to do it a few times.

My booking for the train was probably a bit late leaving at 11am and arriving at 1pm, means you basically lose half a day. The main reason was not having to deal with luggage for too long before the next hotel check-in. I could likely drop off a suitcase at each hotel but my backpack included a very heavy HP Omen gaming laptop which isn't ideal for travelling light.

I finally got another reply overnight about the sim card, now a week later and they said it's not even activated, so no closer to a resolution. I don't understand what they expect me to have been doing in the meanwhile. They even gave me some instructions to check my balance online with Three UK - I had to tell them that 1) the SIM card says Movistar and 2) I don't even know the phone number because it hasn't connected yet. I'm continuing on with the pointless conversation just to see how long it takes to reach a solution.

In the morning still had no reply about my football ticket for tomorrow yet, considering how ridiculous the services fees are there should be no shortage of customer service staff.

Had a burst of heavy rain right as I was about to checkout, the first rain for over a week. I got soaked just crossing the road to get undercover. I had to wait for the rain to reduce, then tried to run between the few undercover spots. Once I got to the station to dry off I checked the departure board and my train was displayed as "on time" for 11:00am.

At 10:30am I went to the boarding area to discover the train was suddenly cancelled on the platform monitors only, there was no announcement or customer email about it. I asked one of the staff and he just said to get the next one at 11:30am (scheduled every half hour). Had they been more organised I could have got the one that left like a minute earlier at 10:30am.

Finally just before 11:00am when the train should have been leaving they announced the reason -  the train in front of it had a problem... I have no idea why this means the following train has to be outright cancelled instead of delayed, it's not like they have a single track running between Birmingham and London and they have to alternate which direction can move.

The outcome was we had to deal with two trains worth of passengers trying to squeeze onto one train.  Lucky I was boarding at the origin as it just kept getting more packed closer to London. After checking my email several more times on the train I finally got a replacement ticket for the Tottenham game tomorrow. I was able to download a weird looking PDF with a QR code that looked like a dodgy screenshot.

Finally got off the train only a few minutes late, plus the extra half hour, around 2:00pm. A quick trip on underground to the next station and I got to the hotel just before check-in time as it turned out. I didn't have much planned for the afternoon, so just took the train down towards London Bridge. Some of these stations like this one you spend several minutes walking from the platform just to reach the actual station exit. I suppose that the price you pay when you have several train lines intersecting at the same station.

Got some very late lunch and walked along the river near Tower Bridge. Back on the train to the hotel since my foot was hurting again, I probably need to buy better walking shoes than what I've been using so far, which are some very old New Balance shoes intended for short distance running, without much cushioning.

Came across Celebrity Catch Phrase on TV in addition to the usual game shows, didn't think they would still have that. Had some research to do for the morning, how to get to Bushy parkrun in the morning, a laundromat nearby, and a printing place nearby.