Overheard on the train

"'This train is the service to Canterbury West'? Is that right?"
"Yes. It's going all the way down there."

Excerpted from a long and painful conversation between two old bags (+ luggage) - the sort who have to touch each other's knees when they say something of monumental import, who never sit near you when you've actually got your iPod, and who you know, instinctively and immediately, will be with you for the full duration of your journey.

Other highlights include: an uncle's forthcoming medical procedure (rights and wrongs thereof); feebly risqué references to husband and the "or pear" [au pair, for those readers who don't speak Sarfeast]; "Are you happy to sit facing the way we're going?" (x4); and "There's Battersea."

At one point, one of them spends a full five minutes trying to write and despatch an SMS.

Then:

"Ooh! Message from Sue [both chuckle, apropos of nothing]. I said to her 'if you're not on time, don't worry, we'll wait.'"