Mike Finding Online

RE: 1st CFM International Club Meet..in London..and next the world!!
Posted on Chris Farrell Membership Site: Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 1:06 PM

Well folks – what an evening!! I think Terry has summed it all up fairly well!!!
Although Brian, Sean and I arrived at 9.30 – I think I can speak for the guys and say we all totally enjoyed meeting you all and putting names to faces etc!! Fantastic to meet “the man and his lady”. Wonderful people both – I certainly hope you got off to LA ok and have an excellent trip – reckon you both may sleep a bit on the flight!! Thank you, thank you so much!!

The travelling was an experience – to say the least!! I picked up Sean and then went over to pick Brian up in Emsworth. We then got totally caught up in BIG traffic and the snow was starting. We decided to take the train….no problem there then….WRONG!! A short way into the journey – we were stopped and told to change trains to the slower one….because there was snow “in the horns”!! Have you heard of such a thing? So we arrived at about 9pm in Waterloo, underground and a quick “jog” to the Stansa.

Excellent time there and frankly I was so pleased to just meet up with you all….shame we had to leave to make the train times home…………..only to be told – the train to Portsmouth was cancelled!!! This is when the “what on earth is this coming to?” thought start to come into mind!!

Sean then took charge and went to find what he next best thing to do would be….train to Eastleigh would get us to spittin’ distance to where we needed to go with a taxi run at the end. I don’t think we stopped chatting on ANY of the journey! I really enjoyed the company of these two new friends (I hope they don’t mind me saying that, especially as my first typo there said fiends !!!)

We then saw another side to the South West Train guys. One of the drivers, couldn’t read his name tag, explained the whys and the wherefores of the frozen horns, the way the ice coats the electric rail and can break the conductors, how they had had to cut tree branches on their way UP to London earlier….totally changing the way we thought about the guys “on the patch” and the “what on earth is this coming to?” mindset!! He also said – get to the end of the line and the people there will get you home by ordering taxis etc – you have a “contract” with the company to get you to your destination. Great response! (this is necessarily a shortened version!!)

Ok – we get to the “end of the line”, oh yes, and the responses….. totally different!! “Oh that shouldn’t have been said” etc. When his attitude was mentioned he just turned and stomped off!

HOWEVER – we had met him first in his office. He placed his keys on the desk and as he went off to phone his superior we all moved out of the office. (We had gathered another 3 people by now all going to the same places!) As we moved out of the office – one of our brethren pulled the door to to keep the warm in, a kindly and thoughtful gesture ….only for the door to click shut….with no handle to open it…..and the keys inside!! I am so sorry but we did kinda chuckle at the potential problem there…..are we bad???

Last leg – a great taxi mini bus got us all to where we needed to be and we all got home eventually…..Sean – did you get home…??? I got home to Dorset about 0530!! But an excellent evening – I would NOT have missed meeting you all for the world.

Thank you all and also thank you Sean and Brian for EXCELLENT company…

Oh – I wonder if that guy got in to get his keys??

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