If you arrange to leave London on the Eurostar on a Sunday morning, you have to be prepared to travel on the Saturday and stay overnight. So far so logical. Having packed, tidied, deposited the dog with the kind people who are looking after her for the week and generally faffed about, I walked down to the station and got the train.

Where I live is on some sort of dogleg alongside the main line. This means that you often have to travel one stop and change trains. This does not always work and you can find yourself stranded 10 miles from home. However, this time, this bit went perfectly. Ascended a half empty train to London and sat back, ready to arrive in plenty of time to check in to the hotel before meeting friends for dinner.

Unfortunately, 5 minutes later, we ground to a halt. New rules on GWR mean that they actually told us what had happened and what was likely to happen – a fatality on the line and we would be there until an investigation had taken place. This is a distinct improvement on the old policy which appeared to be ‘never apologise, never explain’, thus leaving all the passengers to fume and threaten.

Two hours we sat there whist regular police, transport police, regular paramedics, some sort of special paramedics and Network Rail people walked past both inside and outside the train. There was, however, free coffee, free water, free biscuits and regular updates.

Finally getting to London, I went straight to meet my friends for dinner (there had been a lot of frantic messaging from the train), taking my suitcase with me. Always a sophisticated look for a Saturday night out in the capital. The taxi driver complained about costs and new regulations all the way whilst I wondered why the traffic was still solid on a Saturday evening and why no one ever emptied the bins.

Many restaurants, all of them full, so we ended up eating pizza in a bar full of young people getting drunk. We have never felt so old! Particularly with the incessant rock music pounding the eardrums.

Finally collapsing into my 5* central London hotel (a Travelodge on the main road just outside Kings Cross), I was informed I had the last room but ‘it shouldn’t be very noisy’. At the end of a warren of underground corridors with a view of the bins and the rumble of trains going past. Ah, the glamour and sophistication!

This morning, massive queues for the Eurostar, signs saying masks are compulsory (ignored by about 75% of the travellers) and having to have my passport stamped on entering into the Schengen area. The train is now late. Ho hum.