Oh, what a palaver. It makes me proud of the town's bus passengers, that so many tickets are sold for so many buses, with no fuss whatsoever.

Whereas a train ticket -- with its requirements of 1/ single or return, 2/peak or off-peak, 3/. dates of travel, 4/travelcard or not -- seems to utterly flummox more than a few lost souls.

Aside from that, this is my first chance to look at the effects of our new masters, London Midland, who have taken over from Silverlink. It is London Midland's hard luck that the very first thing I notice is a poster announcing the morning trains they forgot to include in the pocket timetable. I go and find the pocket timetable. It is designed for people with younger eyes than mine, clearly. Hmph.

Then the magic time of 9.30 arrives, and peak changes to off-peak, and I climb the steps to the coffee shop on platform 4. There, I make an idiot of myself by asking for "a regular large". Still, there are only about 300 people in the coffee shop, huddling out of the cold, so its not like everyone heard me. And the coffee staff smile.

The trains are a mess. One is a cancelled as there is no conductor. One is delayed due to Police doing Something or Other at Milton Keynes. When a train does arrive, not only do I not get a seat, but I get to stand tubewise, among a happy party of students. One of them balefully regards the first-class section, with its slightly posher seating. "It's a lot of money to pay for a headrest," he says, and I silently agree. All in all, though, it is not a bad trip.We all retain a modicum of personal space and I stand and read everyone else's copy of Metro, until we arrive.

Euston, bless it, never changes. The loos are still sub-par, even for 20p. Still, I've always loved the station, as it is the Gateway to Adventures.

The first of which is a ride on the dreaded Northern Line, which turns up and whisks me to Tottenham Court Road with no fuss at all. Except it is a little cleaner than I remember.

Then I need to head to the Selfridges area so I jump on a bus to Hyde Park Corner.

Of course, I don't literally jump on, not anymore. It's a bendy bus, not a Routemaster. I try to pin down why I resent it. Perhaps it's because inside it feels almost exactly like the tube I've just left.

A Routemaster, on the other hand, is the storybook ideal of a bus. Yes, they're not always clean, or spacious. But that's what a bus should be like. Hmph.

My bendy bus deposits me at Selfridges in no time at all.

Lunch.

After lunch, I walk back down Oxford Street, which is usually very much an involuntary contact sport, but today the crowds are thinner than usual. I'm not sorry.

A couple of hours later I need to get back to Oxford Circus. I try the Central Line. The first train arrives has carriage after carriage of people packed in exactly like sardines in a tin. I don't know how they stand it. I couldn't. Perhaps everyone who would be normally walking is taking the tube. But then again, I seem to remember it is always like this. I get in the final carriage, where there is some room to breathe.

At Oxford Street station I play Exit Roulette, choosing after careful thought, one of the 27 exits on offer. It's the wrong one. Of course it is.

Shopping.

Finlly, a tube back to Euston at night, where I have just under an hour before I catch my train. If I catch an earlier one, I will be waiting at Hemel station for a bus, on a freezing night, for an eternity. It doesn't bear thinking about.

I wander Euston. I notice a radical, shocking change. They've renewed the furniture in the food court. I don't look at the food prices, though, because they always make me cross.

Eventually, I sit on a bench and watch the world go by till I find my train, and a seat. Like the train I took in the morning, it is exactly the same as a Silverlink one, and that in my book is no bad thing.

Finally we reach Hemel station, and I am funnelled out on to the forecourt, as frost begins to coat the trees. It is very very cold, there is no real shelter, and I have to endure 20 minutes of this. I am not thrilled at the prospect.

And then my bus turns up, 15 minutes early, and the driver lets me on board, to wait. I thank him most profusely. It is a generous end to a day where the transport -- apart from a couple of absent trains in the morning -- has been perfect