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Today was a perfect day for staying in with cups of tea and pieces of hot toast, curled up in a comfortable chair under a thick soft blanket with a good book and the radio on. It was inevitable, then, that I’d have to venture out into the worst weather for a year.

Friday night’s gusty winds blew on through Saturday and matured into a full-blown storm as Britain slept last night - or rather, as Britain tried to sleep. It banged on the windows, snapping off branches and dumping huge armfuls of autumn on the ground. It woke me several times - as did the alarm clock that went off an hour early on account of it not knowing about the hour going back to GMT - but each time I fell straight back to sleep.

When the real alarm - the correct alarm - screamed out an hour later it was six o’clock and not a good time to be getting out of bed.

It’s as well I did, though. I drove through Chelmsford wheel-deep in fallen leaves. They were being whipped up by small twisting gusts of wind and flung way up into the air. More serious flinging had been going on around Ilford, though, and a tree had come down on the railway lines. The screens said they were “trying” to secure a replacement bus service, but there was no indication of when it would appear, or how long it would take to get to London.

I decided to drive instead and headed out, far too fast, along the 414. The wind was pushing the car from the left, and each time it dropped I swerved slightly in that direction from steering into the gale in an effort to keep myself on the road. Slowly the sky turned from gunmetal grey to pale blue - all colour blown out of it - and then, as the sun finally rose above the horizon it was filled with brilliant amber light that caught my eyes in the mirror.

I made Ongar in good time and changed my plans, deciding to take a tube from Epping instead. I drove past the end of the airfield at North Weald, where the fire brigade was gathering up bricks from a broken wall that had spilled out into the road, and headed into the forest. Even here, protected by the tall trees, the force of the wind was not to be underestimated. It had broken off branches that now lay in the road, waiting to be flung up by the car in front and crash down on my bonet or roof.

I avoided them all, though, and arrived at the station in one piece. A train was waiting with its doors locked open, letting in the wind, the cold and the leaves. As I sat in a cold seat wishing the doors would close it felt as though a lifetime passed. In reality, it was just six minutes.

I knew I’d made the right decision as soon as we got moving. We tore through the damaged countryside towards the city, slowly filling up along the way, and made Holborn in about half an hour. It would have taken longer had it not been for the fact that Liverpool Street was closed because of vandalism and Chancery Lane is shut every Sunday.

There was a fair amount of damage to the never-ending line of roadworks on High Holborn. They seem to have been in progress for a year or more, but still there are high boards and barriers to protect the workers from the traffic. These had been knocked down by the force of the wind and now lay face down on the tarmac. The workers were doing their best to pick them up while the few drivers out at that time picked a careful route around them.

I was glad to get inside when I finally arrived at ITN, so hunkered down with a broadsheet and tea until Sam arrived to work on the cues. It felt strange being in so early, and reminded me of when I used to produce at Gfm. I’d be in London by seven on a Sunday - five on a weekday - for weeks on end. I don’t remember now whether I found it difficult at the time, but as I sat there this morning reading the paper and sipping my drink I felt very awake and very alive. Perhaps, like a cat that has had its hair blown the wrong way in the breeze, I’d been revved up by the weather.

We worked harder and faster than I think we ever have. It was a long morning, and bits were still being written and edited as I was sitting in the studio presenting the first half of the show. It was fast and exciting and felt very up-to-the-minute and between us I think we pulled it off well.

The guests and topics were certainly varied - gun crime, crack cocaine, theatre, football, racism, music - and by the end of the hour I came out of the studio with my head buzzing.

Throughout the show the travel news had been getting steadily worse and by now it seemed that even the tubes had been shut down by another tree that had fallen on the line. My car was trapped at the station in Epping, while I was trapped in the studios. There was no point rushing off, so I made chamomile tea to calm down, and sat with Sam as we listened back to the show.

In all, not bad. I enjoyed hearing it so soon after it had just finished - normally I have to wait a week. I left just before four, with the travel news showing little sign of any change, and stepped out into the ubiquitous drizzle of Grays Inn Road.

Unfortunately the news had been correct. Although Liverpool Street had now reopened, and there was a fair chance I’d have been able to get home by overground train, a fallen tree still stood between myself and my car. The Central Line stopped at Leytonstone, and we were turfed out of the warm carriages to fend for ourselves under darkening skies with the advice that our tickets would be accepted on the local buses.

Only one problem - there is no local bus to Epping.

The best I could find was the W14, which would take me as far as South Woodford before making an illogical turn and being flung off course like a satellite thrown out of orbit. It was due in two minutes. It arrived thirty minutes later, by which time the sky had once again started to drip, and had come over a most unfriendly shade of dark.

I was lucky to get a seat. It seems most of east London was heading out my way, and it was stading room only for those just three or four behind me in the queue. Not knowing where I was, I’d made sure I was beside a window so I could look out for the station, and more than once almost got off at the wrong stop. We made it in the end, though, having crawled through close-to-static traffic for a while, and then put on a short burst of speed on a dual carriageway I could not name.

With a couple of dozen others I stepped back out into the weather, but while they scurried off to their homes I was left to examine the wet route maps and conclude, with more than a little disappointment, that there were no more buses to Epping today.

I was stuck.

Or at least I thought I was. As luck would have it, though, I headed for the little patch of dry ground beneath the canopy at the front of the station so that I could stand for a while and think. And there, poked around the corner so that the rain would not wash off the felt-tipped block lettering was a witeboard, on which was written the glorious news that a service, albeit still rather fragile, had been resumed in an easterly direction. A train to Epping would be along in six or so minutes - coincidentally the same amount of time I had sat waiting on my cold train this morning with the doors locked open.

I must have been grinning like an idiot by the time I made it to the platform and sat myself down in the “ladies waiting room” to wait. The frosted window was beautifully simple and, being so much more classy than the colour-branded signs everywhere else on the modern-day railway, I had to take out my camera for a picture.

In the event the train took a little longer than six minutes to arrive, but I didn’t really care. I knew that I was now on the last leg of the journey and in a few moments would be sitting down reading my book while someone else thought about the driving and the route.

The train arrived and departed with me inside it, and we made slow progress east. I’m guessing the driver was on the lookout for debris on the track. Perhaps this was the first train since the line had reopened and nobody really knew what to expect. Eventually, though, we got back to Epping and I was greeted by a beautiful sight - my battered and dusty old car.

I drove it back to Chelmsford with a true feeling of appreciation. It felt good to be out of the rain that was now spattering the windscreen, in a soft comfy seat where I was warm and my legs were rested. I went straight to the gym so I could swim and then lay down in the steam room to get warm.

It was not a fun journey, but it was worth it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 27th, 2002 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.