Not so Great Western Railway

This is Cardiff indoor (obviously!) market, and very good it was too.
SWMBO liked the look of some of the kittens for sale but managed to resist the temptation.

Now, this is where it all gets a bit messy and the thoroughly enjoyable trip to Cardiff goes a bit wrong.
There were lots of passengers waiting at the station - on our platform! It turned out that there had been a lineside fire which had destroyed vital (isn't it all vital?) signalling equipment and these good folk were squashing on to 'our' train to get to Bristol. Luckily we had reserved seats so it wasn't a great problem. We did, however make extremely slow progress to Bristol as we were virtually being waved through manually.
After Bristol we made decent progress before coming to a halt. Someone was threatening to jump off a bridge right in front of 'our' train! He did actually kill himself, so we won't go any further with that rant.
We finally got to London after four hours instead of the usual two.
It gets worse...
Next we caught the underground to Farringdon, which we often do to ensure getting a seat before the train gets to St.Pancras and the hoards get on. Well, as we were so late by now, trains had stopped running through London due to overnight engineering work! So, back on the underground to St.Pancras accompanied by the smelliest vagrant you have ever come across. Mr Smelly from Smellytown.
Not finished yet...
The next train to Harpenden was absolutely packed - and was an 'all stations' stopper. Just what we needed.