Rushing places seems to be the norm for me these days. Despite the lesson learned two weeks ago, I continue to find myself in a nearly continual frenzy to be somewhere else (though I take extra care around canals).

It’s not all my fault; the transportation system here seems to be geared to keep commuters on their toes. Currently, I can get to my client’s site by two modes of public transportation—bus and train—and both of them require a frantic sprint if I am going to make it.

The bus, depending on traffic, arrives at the town center bus station (bay 3) anywhere from twenty three to twenty eight minutes past the hour, and my connection leaves bay 17 at twenty five past the hour, ensuring either a mad dash through the crowded bus station—dodging and weaving around less harried commuters like OJ Simpson navigating a field of prosecuting attorneys—or an expletive-laced trot to the taxi rank. You can see why this is not my most popular choice; trains, despite our constant carping about their crap service, are relatively on time compared to busses.

But my train pulls into the Dorking Mainline Station (no, I didn’t make that name up) just four minutes before my connecting train leaves the Dorking Deepdean station. Granted Deepdean station is not far from the main line station, but I’m not as fit as I used to be and, while younger commuters happily endure a daily sprint in order to ensure arriving at work on time, it only took one dash out of the station, down the street, around the corner, along the road and up the numerous and steep steps to the Deepdean platform for me to realize this was not something I wanted to make a habit of.

On my next visit, still winded from my first experience, I took a cab. From then on, it became a ritual: I would trot out of the station, hop in the first cab and say, “I have to be at Deepdean in less than two minutes.” More often than not, the driver would mention Deepdean’s relative proximity, to which I would reply, “I know, but you can drive there faster than I can run.”

At this point the drivers, especially the younger ones, would rise admirably to the challenge, tearing up the road and around the corner as if they were re-enacting scenes from last night’s Cops, Camera, Action. After screeching to a halt at the base of the platform, I would toss them a fiver and run up the stairs to the waiting train, sometimes with as much as 20 seconds to spare. It’s a little more excitement than I generally want to experience that early in the day, but it got me to work on time and the cabbies couldn’t complain about making a fiver for driving a lazy American around the corner. Plus, I had the satisfaction of knowing I beat the system.

Until this morning.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw him reading a newspaper. Still, he was first in line so etiquette demanded I get into his cab.

“I need to be at Deepdean in less than two minutes.”

He looked at me over the top of his reading glasses.

“Then you’d be better off walking,” he said. “It’s just around the corner.”

“I know that, but my train is leaving in two minutes and you can drive there faster than I can walk.”

Rising to the challenge (albeit not the one I was hoping he'd rise to) he folded his paper, started the car, put it in gear, checked his mirrors, signaled and began driving sedately along the short road. At the corner, he stopped and signaled again before pulling cautiously onto the empty street. Ahead of us, the younger commuters had already reached the platform steps and I noted, with growing dismay, that the train was already there.

When we pulled up along the curb, I tried to give him the fiver, but he wasn’t having it. He looked at the bill, then fumbled though a wallet, extracted a piece of paper and, with excruciating deliberation, wrote out a receipt. With equal deliberation, he counted out my change and only then accepted my five-pound note.

I leapt from the cab and raced up the stairs, reaching the platform just as the train began pulling away.

Bugger!

All I could do was stand there, starting at the receding train, empty tracks and the undetermined wait stretching out before me. But then I began to notice other things: birds singing from the nearby shrubbery, buds on the trees, swollen and ready to embrace spring and the morning sun glinting off the dew-covered grass, making it sparkle like emeralds. It was, I noticed, turning into a lovely day and as I stood there, a solitary figure on a deserted railway platform, the sun unveiled the day’s beauty and offered the promise of things to come.

The cabbie, perhaps unknowingly, had done me a favor. Had I made my connection, all of this would have gone unnoticed, and I would be a poorer man for it.

Still, I’m glad I didn’t tip him.