Sad farewell - Cornwall to London

Days like this are always horrible.
It started early with breakfast in Wetherspoons with Jake before he went to work at 9am. We had a nice 45 mins before a sad goodbye outside Wetherspoons!!
Next it was a check out of the Airbnb flat which has been great over the month we have had it.
Mum and Pete had cleared out the boot of the car before they picked us up, so we could get all of our luggage into the Peugeot 208..... just!!
Next it was a stop to say goodbye to Alfie and LaCie which resulted in tears as always ... mine more than theirs!!!
Dead on time we left for the 09.57 train at Truro.
Pete and mum parked up and came to see us off at the platform but the new barrier system means that only passengers with tickets can get onto the platform so everyone just crowds outside the barrier trying to say goodbye.
We waited until the last 5 mins before saying a tearful farewell to mum and Pete. This is always so hard.
Kate went through into the platform and then after one last hug I went to join her..... but the barrier broke!!!
It is now 4 mins before the train is due. To cut a long story short there were about 10 of us stuck on the wrong side of the barrier. I started to pass my bags over to K and got shouted at by a v inefficient member of staff that had come over to try to reset the barrier!! The guy behind me was going mad as the staff member was saying they wouldn’t hold the train even though it wasn’t our fault we were stuck!!
With 2 mins to go we managed to pull the barrier open and I rushed through to the platform completely ignoring the stupid staff member asking to see tickets!!
Just caught up with Kate and in pulled the train- it was manic and added more stress to an already stressful situation.
Then we got on the train and none of the seat reservations were up so it was carnage finding a seat- bloody trains!!
Anyway we arrived into Paddington at 14.35 as planned and then the chaos started again.
We were due to get the tube to Liverpool Street and the train to Stansted where we were staying the night.
On arrival we found out the tube we needed was closed or the whole day. We went for the National express coach ( right out the back of Paddington) but they were running more than an hour late and took nearly and extra hour compared to the train.
Back into the station it was 2 x packed tubes and a packed train and we finally arrived at the hotel at 5.30pm.... 1.5 hour later than expected. Poor K was stressed from the negotiating the tubes with all of our luggage so we went downstairs and had a v expensive small wine which seemed to help. Early start tmrw and a seriously much needed unwind.Read more