I'll tell you why I don't like Mondays.

I very nearly lost my faith in humanity yesterday. Why? Let me tell you.

My day starts early, I generally leave the flat at about six, I ride my bike to the station and have a bit of a play on the way. The city centre is mostly empty at that time so you can get away with things like jumps off the library steps without bothering anyone. Then I can get to the station in good time for the 6:35 train to Northwich.

On Monday the train was running late, in fact a lot of trains were running late, a lot of trains were being cancelled. I asked one of the conductors what was going on. To use his words, it was down to "a bunch of thieving scallies" who had stolen a load of copper wire out of the signals at the rail depot. Already by 6:30 am they were in chaos with only 5 of 46 scheduled trains having been able to leave the depot. But he assured me my train was on the way and only delayed by about 5 minutes. He was a nice helpful man who was obviously feeling put upon with complaints that morning but was still helpful and professional so I thanked him for his time and went back to waiting for the train.

Sure enough, it turned up 5 minutes late so I wasn't overly annoyed with the bunch of thieving scallies. Then the train didn't move. It continued not to move for some time then it was announced that it had been cancelled because of a shortage of drivers, but it was all right because they were very sorry for any inconvenience. This was about 6:50, the next train is at 7:39. This was not good, but I decided to make the best of it. After all this was very nearly an hour to spend playing on my bike.

Well I'm back at the station and I'm feeling quite good considering I'm running over an hour late, I'm sweaty and tired, but the 7:39 train was bang on time. Then it didn't move. It continued not to move for some considerable time. We were told this was because they were waiting for some extra staff to join the train from another train that had been delayed. So 2 hours after I left the flat I was on a moving train on my way to work. I was starting to lose my temper with the bunch of thieving scallies.

Then it comes to the time to get off. Running very late, and my bag is gone. Hmm. I suspect thieving scallies. This is turning into a very bad morning. My bag is gone with my clothes for the day, my bike lock and my wallet. At work it didn't get better. A lot of the jobs I was working on were delayed, waiting for data, so I was pretty much finished by 2. I cleared it with my boss to have Tuesday off and left early to try and sort things out.

I've spent my time since then ringing help-lines and visiting offices to report my missing cards and this is what saved my view of people. Everyone has been really helpful and understanding and yes, I know it's part of their job, but still, for the most part everyone went above and beyond to help me out. So thank you for Tuesdays army of good souls that helped me forget the low down thieving scum of Monday.