British trains

J recounts his experiences with the British train system for one of his online communities:

The train we were trying to take from London to Wales was cancelled due to the electrical lines being down?! And they couldn't tell us when future trains would be running because the whole station was out of commission, but we walked to a different station with a different set of trains, and think we've found a couple routes that could get us there, with extra connections. 🤞

So the first train is the same on both of those routes, so we're going!

Also we mostly had to assemble the routes ourselves (with help from eve_prime), because the different trains are run by different companies who don't talk to each other
And the existing website that tries to combine them didn't know about the outage and insisted on trying to use the old route

Later:
Apparently they are constantly changing and cancelling trains, we're on an entirely new route now
This sort of puzzle would be more interesting if we didn't have an actual place we're trying to get to

Later:
Sounds like our next train is delayed... But maybe not by too much to make our next connection?

Later:
While waiting for our late train, hearing announcements for other trains: "We are sorry that the 13:40 cross country service to Cardiff has been cancelled, due a fault on this train. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes."

Later:
On our fifth train of the day, leaving our sixth station of the day. Hopefully this is the last one and we arrive at our destination in Wales!

And they did!

Three highlights of my day

First, waking up to learn that J and C had made it to Conwy and that J was extremely happy with the town and hotel. He said, "This place seems really nice, we could have just come here for the whole time," and "It would be fun to be staying here and just hanging out for a week or something - could even be working remotely." So I chose a good place!

Next, attending the all-Bach concert honoring the retirement of Margret "Peggy" Gries, who has been in charge of the Oregon Bach Collegium for quite some time. We heard the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major (with its famous second movement), a Prelude and Fugue, a Cantata, and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. It was very warm outside today, and the neighborhood Episcopal church doesn't have air conditioning, so we were all at least mildly uncomfortable, but the music made up for it.

And third, helping D&S with their moving! They seem to want to do most of it themselves, and they're being rather disorganized about it, but it's not an urgent task. I got D to sort through some of his clothes so that I could use some t-shirts to pack up the cups and bowls he owns, then later I helped them try to fit the small cabinet they'd gotten from JC and MSC into S's car, then coaxed them into trying my car instead (which was larger and did work), then driving it there for them. I didn't get to go inside this time, since my car was in the tenants-only lot, but I can wait to see things until it's all ready. They did get the bed set up, and a few days ago they had made a very attractive arrangement of S's houseplants beside a bookcase with their favorite videogames; D sent me a photo. Tomorrow they'll get Internet service, and at some point either tomorrow (when he's also working all day and somehow attempting to go to the DMV) or later they'll move his desk.