Insane

Billy's eyes were wide as saucers. "That was insane!" he stated. To be fair, on the father / son bonding scale it was an eleven. The tube we were on had stopped, engines off. "Ladies and gentlemen, there is an unidentified package in train ahead. This service will been terminated until further notice." Damn - we had to get on the 1.06pm from Paddington to get Billy back for footie trials at Plymouth. That gave us 30 minutes.

"Okay, let's go". We emerged onto the streets at Westminster. Taxi! We hailed but no one stopped. Must have been my road bike that I had in tow. Okay, think, think, think. "Right Billy, hop on." Somehow both of us (with backpacks) got onto the bike and we began what was to be the most extraordinary half an hour I can ever remember.

"Stop" said the policeman outside Whitehall. You can't cycle on the pavement. We got onto the road. Manic would be one way to describe it. I'd come up the day before to stay with my Mum in Cobham and thought it'd be cool to cycle from Paddington, so I knew that getting through central London was really not that great. And here I was, two up on a bike with Billy cycling through Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch rushing to catch the train.

We missed it by two minutes! Damn again. "I can't believe we just did that!" We collapsed in exhaustion. Hey ho, got the next train and eventually arrived at the training ground one minute early! What a day. It'll go down as one of those adventures that we'll always remember. Off the scale. If only they'd known at Plymouth the effort that went into getting him there for training. Some commitment to the cause. Funny thing was, Billy had his best training session yet. Must have been the adrenalin!