Daughter and I went "up North" during half term to visit her grandparents and the rest of the family.

I booked our train tickets some weeks ago before the gales hit. We were supposed to have a nice relaxing journey, with one change at Watford Junction. The first part of our journey went okay. At Watford things began to go wrong.

"This station is extremely crowded," I said to daughter as we struggled to find a screen that displayed which platform we needed to get our train to Liverpool. We soon discovered why.

"Due to conditions (obviously a new word for leaves) on the line, no trains are heading north from Watford Junction today," said a voice from a speaker. "All passengers wishing to travel north should go to platform eight and wait for a train to Milton Keynes."

Us and about 500 other people, also wishing to go north descended on platform eight and caught a local line to Milton Keynes. By local line I mean a very slow train that stops at every single station even though nobody was getting off and there certainly wasn't room for anyone to get on.

When we finally arrived we discovered we had an hour-and-a-half until the next train to Liverpool. I don't know if you have ever been to Milton Keynes - if you haven't, don't bother.

Both the town and the station could win an award for being the most boring places on Earth. After a quick look round a few blocks of soulless concrete we decided to just sit and wait. The platform was crowded so we had to sit on our bags and lean against a wall.

"I'm really bored," said daughter. "So am I," I said. "What shall we do? How much longer till the train comes?" she asked. "About one hour and 19 minutes," I replied.

We played I Spy for a bit. "How much longer now?" she asked. "About one hour and 11 minutes."

She played snake on her mobile and then decided to call her Dad. "I'm really bored," she told him. "It's all mum's fault." Then she played more snake.

"How much lonnnngggger?" "About an hour." I was enjoying sitting and doing nothing, probably because I rarely get the chance but this was a problem for a teenager.

I told her about the other time I had been to Milton Keynes, to see David Bowie perform back in the late Seventies. "How sad," she said "How much longer?"

Eventually it arrived - before I was tempted to push her into it's path - and we finally finished our journey. I think in future I will check the weather reports before I book train tickets again.