Prizes and meeting

Did I mention that I received an email a few weeks back telling me that I'd won a prize in an on-line competition?

Well the goody bag arrived today. It was all connected with the film "How to lose Friends and Alienate People". I'd read the book a couple of years ago. They sent me a poster featuring Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson and Simon Pegg (I'm a fan of all of these!), a copy of the book, the soundtrack CD and a very rude t-shirt. The t-shirt words read "Young, Dumb and Full of C*m" which is very subtle. I'm not allowed to wear it out of the house and have to keep it away from the kids. See the picture.

In the afternoon I went up to London to meet a recruitment agent. Nightmare: I checked the on-line departure for the train running status at 14:30. It was "on-time". When I got to the station I spent 2 minutes getting a car park ticket (£2) after the first machine wouldn't take my money. I then went and queued for the travel ticket machine and bought my ticket. When I went inside the screens showed that my train (the 15:09) was "cancelled". So I then had to get a refund on my travel ticket (but I couldn't get one on my car park ticket). I then had to drive to Haslemere which is the next station up the line. I drove round their on-site car park which was full and had to go to the off-site car park and park. I then paid another £4 for another ticket. It was only £3.50 but I now had no change other than 2 £2 coins so I am now out-of-pocket by £2.50 extra on car parking. The train ticket was a bit less £15.50 rather than £16.40 so I'm now out-of-pocket by £1.60 plus my fuel costs. I got a train to London that arrived at 16:23. My meeting was at 16:30 in a cafe at the station. The meeting took 20 minutes and I got the 17:00 train back to Haslemere. The guy I met got me a cup of coffee which I really needed, but potentially if that meeting doesn't "pay back" it has cost me £15.50 on the train fare, plus £6.00 in parking and 20 miles driving (say 1/2 a litre of fuel at £1 a litre) so all in £24 for a load of stress and a medium latte. I'm not impressed with south west trains on-line "how is my train running" service either. I'll send them a complaint I think.