Yesterday proved to be a complete waste of time – albeit an interesting one. After breakfast, I thought I’d go up to Westminster to see what all this. VE day fuss was about. After all, it’s only a few stops away on the Jubilee line, so what would be the point of just staying at home and watching it on TV? A few minutes after leaving the flat, though, I came back for a coat; the hints of summer we had a few days ago were definitely a deception.

My trip up into London proved easy enough. Once up there however, I almost immediately saw that staying at home would probably have been the better idea: the area was teeming with people, so much so that I could barely move. Watching the parade, even getting a glimpse of it, was off the cards – all I could see from my powerchair was other spectators’ backsides. I tried to move around a bit, up and down Whitehall, to try to get a decent view, without avail. Mind you, it must be said that I lost count of the number of people who complemented me on my ‘Make America Think Again’ cap.

After a couple of hours or so I gave up. I caught a glimpse of the flyover, which was fairly cool, but that was about it. With the parade over and the crowds slowly dispersing, I decided to go for a bit of a trundle up The Mall and through St James’s Park. I rather like that area of central London with it’s parks, ponds and fountains. I initially intended to find my way to Bond Street in order to get the Elisabeth Line home, but somewhat predictably I got lost. I eventually found myself at Victoria Station: at first I thought I would just ask for directions there, but then, on the tannoy, I heard that a train would be stopping at Kidbrooke. Catching it would make getting home far easier and quicker, I presumed.

I found one of the station staff and asked, using my Ipad, if I could get on that train. They duly obliged, and I was helped to board the train, only to be asked to get back off two or three minutes later because nobody would be at Kidbrooke to help me with the ramps there. I got off the train and was told to wait for the next one.

That wasn’t so bad: I just connected to the station Wifi and checked my Facebook. Twenty minutes or so later, though, exactly the same thing happened: I was helped to board the train only to be told to get back off at the last moment. Needless to say I was furious. Back on the platform I demanded to see the station manager, only to be told, rather condescendingly, to calm down. If other people can get on and off overground trains with such ease, why couldn’t I? London public transport has come on in leaps and bounds in terms of accessibility over the last few decades, so why is the overground still so shitty?

To once again cut a long story short, I got home an hour or so later: it wasn’t late, but I was hungry. I would have been home far earlier if I had just taken the tube; although it must be said that, sat in the train carriage, I was treated to some intriguing views across South London. More to the point, if I had stayed home I would also have had a much better view of the entire parade. Yet trying out the London overground is something I had been wanting to do for a while – I now know it sucks.