Day 1 London to Stourbridge

Believe it or not we caught the 1700 train from Marylebone to Kidderminster, but - there was debris on the line north of Birmingham causing a delay at Birmingham Moor Street. The delay led to the train being cancelled at Birmingham and we had to swop trains from the nice new one we were on to a clapped out banger. The problem with this train was the lack of electronic signs or announcements that told us which station we were at. The signs on the station couldn't be seen because it was dark and raining. So Ian and I had to keep jumping off at each stop, much to the amusement of the locals. Finally arriving at Stourbridge Junction we had to find the train to Stourbridge Town, this was fairly easy and the conductor didn't charge us because he knew we had been messed around. The train was a single carriage push me pull you thing. We just missed the bus so decided to jump in a taxi to the B&B, a fiver well spent as it was raining hard. The B&B was welcoming and nice although the room could have been aired better. The local pub "The Plough" serves a very nice pint of Mad Goose, shame they don't do Mad Gander - that will be us then. During the train ride Ian and I had some interesting conversations. Of course its standard operational procedure [SOP] to put the world to rights, which we did, todays theme being holidays. We worked out that if we placed our rucksacks into plastic bin liners and inflated them we could use them as floats along the river Severn - beats walking! As the train crossed over a motorway we tried to work out which one it was - from that came the birth of the motorway watch concept - roughly M1 is 12 o' clock and the M4 would be 9 o'clock- got it? Good! We think we could sell it to the AA or RAC. Ian is going to be invited to write a parallel blog to you all get his spin on the day’s events. In the meantime we are going to develop sub sections on such topics as evening wear, inanimate objects that are nice enough to hug [buildings, trees etc.]. We also need a pedometer app - Ian's dept.
Another sub section would be “what would Wainwright say here". Finally (because my pint has almost gone) is an observation section such as “spot whom is staying in your local B&B" and "is cask ale and curry" an oxymoron?