Public transport - a delightful experience

As a rail commuter, public transport can be a horror - but not always. Back in January we went for a day trip to Brighton by train and it was a pure delight. When public transport works, it works very well. Less than an hour from home to London, and a further hour to Brighton. Relax, enjoy the view and a tea or coffee while snuggling up to my little girl.. And no problem about a glass of wine or two.

But when it's bad, it's really bad. A Saturday trip to London (timetabled journey time fifty minutes). Engineering works - yep, these are necessary but the alternative arrangements were a shambles with no apparent attempt at a reasonably joined-up approach. Actual journey time over three hours. Twenty-five minutes spent sitting on a bus waiting to move off only to arrive at the next station to find we'd missed our connection by twenty minutes.

BUT it's possible to get across the Medway towns in fifteen minutes by train - by car, crawling along thirty to forty-five minutes - so the railways do have their benefits.

Crawling, crawling crawling - in March we spent ages crawling in traffic around Southampton one Saturday and on another Saturday around Medway - the curse of the car...we need better public transport...