An Awesome Saturday with Drama and Excitement (and Noodles)

We went to London on Saturday. It was an epic day - so epic, in fact, that even though we saw tons of friends and family and had some really great times, we took no photographs at all. Oops.

The day went like this: leave Cambridge - get to Nanny Jock's house - go to Lylah's first birthday party - have an awesome time - leave party - rejoice that Elizabeth fell asleep on the train back to the city - meet up with our Cool Friends in London, Alex & Naomi - enjoy a pre-dinner drink with them - go for noodles in Covent Garden - feel very proud of ourselves that our child ate and was not a nuisance at the busy restaurant on a Saturday night. Her good behaviour was probably related to the awesomeness of my drawing on the placemat:

50p to the first person who knows what this is.

I tell you this all in fast forward because the real hilarity started after  dinner.

When we were eating, we realized that it was an hour later than we thought - does that happen to anyone else? You think you're fine for time and then you look at your watch and feel like you lost an hour? Like some kind of Daylight Savings vortex! That was why we didn't get to Kings Cross until 8:04. And then I glanced at the departures board, and the next train to Cambreej was at 8:06... so I convinced Matthew to run up two flights of stairs with Elizabeth in the stroller. He was totally ye of little faith. And then I totally  biffed it on the stairs and completely fell!  I'm talking a full on  fall onto hands and knees! Remind me how cool I am?? But I got up, we kept running, and actually made it onto the train. Result!! We were those annoying people that make trains depart 30 seconds late, which somehow causes the train to arrive at its final destination 10 minutes late. (I don't understand how that happens, but it's true.)

After we had caught our breath, and someone offered Elizabeth & I a seat as the train was pretty packed, we realized that this was the s-l-o-w-e-s-t  train in the world, and stopped at every single town between London & Cambridge. Normally, the trains are either direct or only have 2 or 3 stops, so the travel is between 45 minutes and an hour. This train was going to be an hour and forty minutes. Whoopsies.

I feel like this is a story told by a six year old - just a series of "and THEN!" - But really, and then!!  There were no seats left in our carriage, but a 30 year old-ish Dude had a suitcase on the seat beside him. British Man #1 (probably about 60 years old) asked him to move his case so he could sit. Dude actually said no. So British Man #2 (also aged about 60) who didn't know British Man #1, asked Dude, "Did your case buy a ticket?" To which Dude responded by putting his headphones on and turning his back.

Well.

British Man #2 took offense to that, as you can imagine. He tapped Dude on the shoulder and said, "You're being unreasonable. There are people standing and you have a suitcase on a perfectly good seat."

Well.

Dude too offense to that, and said, "Do you want me to smack those {expletive} glasses right off your {expletive} face?"

Now. I ask you: what kind of dumbass would actually hit someone on a packed train? Or any busy public place? What a lame threat. If he had actually hit that man, someone would have recorded it on their phone, and posted it to youtube before we got to the next stop. Someone else would have phoned the police, who would have met us at the next station to arrest him. Every single person in our carriage could have identified Dude in a line up. What a dumbass. I secretly wanted him to try something. But he didn't.

Instead, British Man #1's Super British Wife stood up and said, "This is just plain bad manners and is disss-gusting. My husband has just had knee surgery and you're going to make him stand  so your case can be on a seat? I am dissss-gusted by this." Oh, but waitasec - let's just point out one thing: British Man #1's Super British Wife was sitting down. She had a seat that she wasn't offering to her recovering-from-surgery-husband...That doesn't take away from the fact that Dude was wasting a seat, but it sure doesn't win her any Wife of the Year awards...

British Man #1 started to get a little bit jumpy now, since he was closest to Dude, and British Man #2 was clearly putting on a brave face but was probably secretly pretty worried about (a) being able to drive home from the station with broken glasses, and (2) explaining his black eye to everyone at the office on Monday. In the end, Dude calmed down, moved his case, and then British Man #1 had the totally-not-awkward joy of sitting next to him for the whole ride home. Relaxing?? I think not.

Taking a train that stops in every single village & town made me grateful that we live in Cambridge. This is simply because saying, "I live in Cambridge" sounds infinitely nicer than, "I live in Knebworth." Seriously? Knebworth? Who would move there???

Team Hawkeye actually had a pretty fun train ride home. This is how we roll:

So basically, we had an awesome Saturday.