11:55.

After such a great birthday I’ve kept the mood going by atranging to meet up with friends for a few hours back in Liverpool – only things haven’t quite gone to plan…

The weather at home is wet and windy but Dawn was kind enough to give me a life to the station so I could avoid a soaking. So far, so good…

I’d planned to get a train to Manchester Victoriaand where I’d pick up a Trans-Pennine Express service direct to Liverpool Lime St, but Northern services were running late. A quick check of the timetable showed that I could catch the next Northern service to Huddersfield and pick up the Liverpool train there.

Feeling smug, that’s what I did. I even had time for one of the Huddersfield station cafe’s excellent bacon baps (or ‘teacakes’, as they call ’em in Yorkshire). Of course, I’d forgottenthis was TPE we’re talking about. The preceding train was the 10:25 to Manchester Piccadilly. It had developed a fault so was running late. ‘Late’ kept getting later and later…

Meanwhile, my Newcastle to Liverpool service was late from the off. It lost another 5 mins at York, then got stuck behind the 10:25 which was struggling. So my 10:38 off Huddersfield became the 11:02 on departure.

We crawled across the Pennines as we were behind a stopper, arriving at Manchester Victoria 25 down. Thankfully, the service is booked to sit at Victoria for 14 mins. Our prompt departure allowed us to cut our deficit to 14 mins by the time we left Newton-le-Willows.

Judging by the WhatsApp messages, friends are having similar problems…