The morning after the night before

I'm sitting in what may very well be the same seat in the same carriage on the same old WAGN train that I sat in less than nine hours ago, to return from a night out in London with the lads.

Not an especially late night out as you can tell, but enjoyable.

Until, that is, went to I board my train back to St Albans. Maybe I was lulled into a false sense of security by the easy access to St P from KX tube - it's astonishing how much space there is for pedestrians in Pancras Road when there are none around - maybe I had just forgotten what it is like to travel out of London after the evening rush hour, when it can be a quite unpleasant experience.

Firstly, none of the departure screens give any clue as to whether any trains are scheduled to depart from St P at all. So I get on what I take to be an all stations service on platform 13. The Thameslink official assures me that it is the next train to my destination but I don't trust her grasp of English – I’m not confident that she knew what my question was!

Then I’d also forgotten how different the average late-night pre-Christmas traveller can be. There’s the drunk middle aged man who may not even be on the right line, let alone the right train. The sleeper. The mp3 warrior with the volume turned up so loud that people from the next carriage keep coming in to complain about the noise. The couple so passionately entwined that they have completely forgotten about the woman sitting on the seat between them. You know the sort of thing.

What a relief to get back the rush hour.