{"id":857,"date":"2021-09-22T15:54:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/?p=857"},"modified":"2021-10-05T20:00:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:00:44","slug":"not-off-this-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/?p=857","title":{"rendered":"Not of this planet."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Now as many of you know, before writing this blog I used to do one of my own based upon my experiences running Orton Mere Station for fourteen years. I also did five short articles covering the first five years at the railway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are no longer on-line. However, I have commenced writing a book covering my almost 17 years on Nene Valley Railway. This will be published as an e-book and 50% of the profits will be donated to the railway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of this I have been thinking back to some of the more, shall we say strange visitors I have never mentioned before in my musings and writings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One which I must admit I had forgotten about came to mind. So here it is, on an average weekend running day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a summer Saturday afternoon, and for once the sun was shining. I was in my normal position behind the counter guarding the till.<br><br>In walked this middle aged lady and without saying a word she took two Mars bars out of her pocket and slammed them down on the counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at me she uttered a single word. &#8220;Refund.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at her with no doubt a look of disbelief on my face. I pointed out that she had not bought them from us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She then informed me that she had bought them from a local shop not to far away but did not now want them. Then she also informed me that the shop in question had refused her a refund. Despite her telling me that she had made a scene in the shop in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So with distorted logic she decided that she would get a refund elsewhere, and joy of joys she had chosen Orton Mere Station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She went a lovely shade of red as I informed her she would not see me refunding something I had not sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully I was not subject to a slanging match. Loudly she stated that we were providing lousy customer service. Then when I pointed out that actually she was not a customer she picked up the Mars bars whilst emitting a scream that sounded like dodgy brakes on a diesel and stormed out of the station. As she passed to rubbish bin she slung the Mars bars into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Me, I took a deep breath looked at the man standing the other side of the counter with an open mouth and uttered the immortal words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes what can I do for you?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a straight face he said &#8220;Got any Mars bars?&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We looked at each other for a few seconds then both burst out laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was just a normal day at Orton Mere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now as many of you know, before writing this blog I used to do one of my own based upon my experiences running Orton Mere Station for fourteen years. I also did five short articles covering the first five years at the railway. These are no longer on-line. However, I have commenced writing a book &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/?p=857\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Not of this planet.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-along-the-line","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nenevalleyrailway.co.uk\/NVR_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}