Engineering works and disruption - Redhill to Coulsdon South

All the fun of the "fare" today...there are *week* long engineering works on the line that goes from Redhill to Coulsdon South meaning *all* trains from our area to London Bridge have been completely cancelled...two alternatives are left, (neither of them are particularly attractive) -

1 - Bus to Redhill, wait for a replacement bus service to Purley (and there are terrible road works along there that we discovered on Timmy's stag do), wait at Purley for a train to East Croydon, then wait at East Croydon for a service to London Bridge - estimated journey time - how long is a piece of string...?
2 - Drive to Earlswood as usual (wade through the crowds of people who have come from Redhill that aren't usually Earlswood passengers), wait on the wrong platform (no sign to tell us, thanks) for a train to Victoria (which is the wrong side of London completely for the Docklands), forget trying to find a seat and just look for any tiny space to crush into), this train then has to go the wrong way down the track, wait until nothing is coming (took about ten minutes this morning) and then sneak onto the Gatwick Express line (which is not part of the engineering works), get off at Victoria (where 3 of the entrances to the tube were closed today thanks to overcrowding by all the extra people trying to use it), get the District line to Westminster and then change onto the Jubilee line to complete my journey...

We did option two...and somehow, this total hash of a journey managed to get me into work about fifteen minutes earlier than usual...go figure...!

On the way home it's *five* separate stages on the railway alone (including the replacement bus through the road works), and the two tube journeys unless I can get on the train out of Victoria that leaves at 1710...somehow I get the feeling that this isn't going to be a very enjoyable week...