Senior railcard

Thanks yogagran about railcards.

Oy veh! - how to buy your railway ticket. Battle with the website (one click? - my posterior! And what was my blooming password...?) . Queue at the station behind large families with complex enquiries? Or then there are the machines... Guess who managed to buy a single instead of a return to London on Saturday. And then at the other end, which was a joint rail and tube station, there was no staffed ticket office. So no option of using railcard on their machine... I understood why my 85 year old cousin had taken herself all the way to Paddington and back to purchase her ticket for the following week.

I had a railcard for a year and it was worth the money when both my children lived in London. Now that one has moved abroad I don't seem to get enough use out of it to make it worth while. Yes it does give you cheaper fares but you have to work out the optimum number of uses to make it worthwhile.

Oh dear JessM, a bit of a muddle, poor you! I always use the "trainline" website and find it fairly straightforward but I must admit to having almost the same password for all sites. Yes, I know we shouldn't, but I can't cope with remembering different ones. You can order your tickets online and collect them from one of the machines which avoids the queues, you can even order a travelcard which covers the underground as well. If you haven't pre-ordered and want to use a machine, it filled me with trepidation the first few times, there is a button for a railcard, just don't panic!
I do struggle to keep up with technology sometimes but I remind myself that we've got to try to keep up with the younger generation...

It's the keeping calm bit and not getting tetchy with the machine isn't it. Like the automatic payment machines in supermarkets.
Having made a mess of it , it was an exercise in maintaining calm and not feeling bad about myself... let it go...
But it is a better idea to book online in the peace of home, you are right.
My DH very organised with passwords - he uses short sentences like "I came back from Hong Kong in May 99" Which would give him IcbfHKiM99. But he only has 3 - one for banking, one for shopping etc.
My approach is a bit more random and involves names, Pick a family name with the letters I L or O. Say it was Lolita. The password would be L011ta - substituting numbers for those letters.
I have started keeping a cryptic spreadsheet to keep a record of them, so that i don't use the same ones all the time. I put the username, email address i used and a reminder of the password e.g "mothers maiden name" . It seems to be working but i need to retrieve the trainline one. And Amazon and I got our lines seriously crossed last week what with my different emails and my spam filter hiding the password change emails... Ah well, good for the brain!

Oh no - those awful self service checkouts in supermarkets - I can never seem to manage them. I'm not sure if it's any quicker anyhow.
I also keep a cryptic list of passwords and really must start using different ones more often. I sometimes use my car number for some websites. Pin numbers, passwords, memorable questions - such a lot of things we have to remember!

I suppose it keeps our brains toned up. Things changing all the time. I think my record at one of those supermarket ones , in terms of needing help, is 5 times. That was 1 per item.

Back to railway stations. I go up to London on Sundays ready for granchild care on Mondays so want to make the most of my travel costs. I decided en route to go on a detour to the Turner Contemporary gallery at Margate via Victoria & had to buy a ticket there. I couldn't believe how crowded it was on a Sunday morning. The queues for the ticket office was so long th enext 3 trains would have been missed. Queues for the ticket machines were short but slow as tourists struggled to work out the system. Luckily I spied a lone official with mobile ticket machine & was served very quickly. They could have done with an army of them. That station really needs a complete modernisation before the Olympics next year - it's a nightmare & must be very confusing for tourists.

What age do you have to be to buy a railcard? 60 or retirement age?

Just found your question crimson, sorry for the delay. I'm fairly sure it's 60 when you can get one. You don't get free train travel but you get 30% off, so you need to work out if it's worth it. I travel by train quite often and especially if you can book some weeks ahead and use www.thetrainline.com you can save a loot of money on fares.

GadaboutGran If you would like somewhere quiet and peaceful to visit in London try going to The Royal Chelsea Hospital, the "Chelsea Pensioners" home. Not many people seem to know that it's open to the public and you can look around the grounds which are beautifully kept, the chapel, dining room (both stunning places) and almost certainly get chatting to some of the residents. They are closed from 12.00 till 2.00 for lunch time. It's a lovely place.
Another quiet place is the Physic Garden, just further along the road. I didn't realise that such a place existed. They do a good lunch or teas and cakes.
Both places are well away from the tourist trails and school holiday crowds. Peace, tranquillity and beauty - what more could we ask?

Thanks yogagran. I do love travelling by train but do so very rarely these days. What is annoying is that, even if you get a discount on the tickets you still have to pay @ £10 just to park at the station. We always used to travel to Cheltenham by train but got fed up of paying a fortune for our tickets but having to stand for most of the journey home. I'd love to visit London more often.

Another note to crimson - re parking expenses. I use the website:

www.parkatmyhouse.com/uk/

and that gives me access to a driveway within a few minutes walk of the station. Costs me £4.50 instead of £6.50, it's a guaranteed space so no doubts about the car park being full either