Yesterday at 6.30am we left the house full of anticipation… we were going to London! We had a nice train journey ahead of us and by half past 4 we were expected in Stoke Newington. Well, it wasn’t going to be so straight forward!

At the beginning all went smoothly. We got on the TGV in Basel, we had nice people with children next to us, they played we chatted and as our arrival time drew closer we started to pack. But then came the announcement that due to the cold weather the train had not been able to go at its normal speed and that there was a 40 minute delay.

This cut into our playground time and slight rushing might have contributed to us leaving our baguette behind - a fact that we later regretted badly. As it turned out the Parisians are terribly worried about children slipping on a bit of snow or frozen ground so they had cordoned off the playground! But it was brandnew and the sun was shining in the snowy park… We were disobediant parents and were soon joined by quite a few others. But it wasn’t to last long as a warden spotted us and asked us to leave.

At about that time Joan texted to say that all Eurostar services had been suspended. We took the news quite calmly, in fact we were terribly calm all through the events that were to follow. After a nice coffee/hot chocolate in a bar we went to the station. Passengers were being asked to rebook their tickets and we decided that I would queue up while Dave stayed at the back with the children and luggage. As I was trying to figure out which queue was which there was an announcement: could all passengers for the 2.15 train please go to the front of the queue. that was us so I went to the front and a friendly lady asked me about the other travellers, stuck stickers on my tickets… I still thought I was rebooking but no! There was to be one more train. I phoned Dave who heroically brought a heavy suitcase, a pram with Tate in it and two children through hundreds of people to the front (with Amy and Sam bravely wending their way through the people) and off we went - Passport control, x-raying of luggage, waiting, boarding, more waiting.

It turned out the train driver hadn’t turned up yet… but an hour later we were off. It was cold, there was snow and we knew that four trains had ended up stuck earlier so we were slightly anxious as we entered the tunnel… but surely they wouldn’t send another train without knowing they’d solved the problem! After half an hour in the tunnel I noticed that we were going very slowly. Moments later there was an announcement that all engines had stopped working and that we were freewheeling - hopefully all the way to the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately we slowly drifted to a halt whilst still inside. Miraculously, however, we quickly started moving again… perhaps they had figured it all out? we hoped they had. Then there was a small explosion: white light like some fairly big fireworks and a bang. What was going on? We continued to move and people started making cautious jokes about the bang. Soon we exited the tunnel to the palpable relief of everyone - we thought that we were fine now - but the engine stuttered again and slowly drew to a halt again. After repeatedly being told the driver was doing all he could to get it going again, we were finally told that the engine couldn’t continue and that they were going to have to do something else.

Now Eurostar started to their emergency measures. Everything seemed to take forever though. The train they decided should drag us into London arrived after about an hour and then it took another hour before we could set off. At some point they announced: the coupling procedure has almost been completed. Everyone wondered how long it could possibly take to couple two trains together - an hour seemed unfeasible - but the mood remained remarkedly upbeat. Everybody was still so grateful to be on a train and, after all, London was only an hour away.

After waiting for two hours we took off towards London - at reduced speed and with the air con switched off, no intercom (an excuse not to have to bother informing us of what was going on I think - I don’t believe an intercom uses much power when not being used) and reduced lighting, as the batteries were going flat fast. It was expected to take an hour and a half to reach St Pancras. I was quite pee’d off since that meant we would be getting back past the children’s bedtime… I was also worried about a red toy frog that had disappeared! What small worries!

We came to Ebbsfleet and carried on towards the London tunnels and then the train slowed and slowed and finally drew to a halt again…

(to be continued tomorrow… I need to go to bed now as there was not much sleep yesterday)