Brief Despatch From A Bonkers Tube Trip

I am down to London for a few days on a couple of scented missions, and also to visit some non-fumehead friends. Now I didn't actually get here on the tube, as the title may suggest, but there are a lot of tube trips involved now I am here, and I am positively caning my Oyster card. The weekend got off to a bad start when the train I was scheduled to take from Stafford was cancelled, owing to a lack of crew. "A lack of crew"? Were they all mysteriously struck down with the same virus? Were they travelling to the rail depot together and got caught up in a massive traffic jam? Or was just the driver available perhaps, but not the rest of the crew, because I would have happily settled for that. There are no refreshments on London Midland trains anyway, and the conductor doesn't always check tickets even when they are fully staffed. Whatever the extent or otherwise of this "lack", they knocked my train on the head regardless, and in turn I had to cancel my meeting with Linda Pilkington of Ormonde Jayne, whom I was due to see at the Old Bond Street store that afternoon. I will hopefully catch her next time I am down, but it was a shame. I was preternaturally smart for one thing. As some of you may know, the working from home thing means I am often in my pyjamas for much if not all of the day. But yesterday I was dressed early, in what Mrs Bonkers Senior would call a "tidy outfit", topped off with coordinated accessories!

To be continued...