Scotland Day Five - Lulu
Today's artiste choice is in honour of the chap we sat near on the train who had clearly had a similar experience to Lulu and someone had made him want to shout. This was clear by how loudly he conducted his mobile telephone call.
Sorry should have put a spoiler alert before the previous paragraph, but then again it could have been a train to the hire car place or the airport. It wasn't, it was the train home. Yesterday a decision was taken to book a place on a train early-ish in the morning. Most of the group went for a later train as first class was quite cheap, sadly Patricia and I were on a deadline so a 10:00 departure it was.
Before I detail the train journey I have a few further things to raise from yesterday's tourism. The first item is summarised by the caption below the picture.
The second is a picture I took of the Balmoral hotel on the walk home from dinner last night. The clock on the Balmoral hotel is relevant to today's shenanigans in that it has always been set three minutes fast to make sure Edingburgers don't miss their trains.
The station was not too busy when we arrived at 9:30 ish and we had time to grab a couple of coffee's and a copy of Viz to read on the train. Waiting on the platform for the train was a stressful affair, it was not clear if seat reservations would be honoured or not. That said I used to play Rugby to a high standard so was not that worried about coming out of the ensuing scrum without a seat. The final result was Ben 1: Old Lady 0. Result.
The train was quite a nice new one with plenty of space even for a taller gentleman like me. This did not help the journey to not be really really boring. Highlights of the journey were those on the left hand side of the train being able to see the Tyne bridge in Newcastle, Durham Cathedral and the Angel of the North. That would probably have made the journey pass much more quickly, however I was sat on the right hand side so got to see the boring side of Newcastle and some flooded fields.
That said the wind was so strong in places that the flooded fields had waves which was pretty cool.
We arrived home about 20 minutes late thanks to some broken rails or something near Newark. All in all not a bad journey even though returning by train was the third choice following flying and mini bus.
This year's away game visit completes the Six Nations away fixtures set for me. What I have learned over the past five years is always go to games in Italy, if you can't then Wales or Scotland are second best. Paris is a good weekend but the stadium doesn't have enough bars (more or less none), Dublin is not somewhere I will be hurrying back to.
Either way the Lions tour South Africa next year so expect the next Rugby blog to be from further afield.
Sorry should have put a spoiler alert before the previous paragraph, but then again it could have been a train to the hire car place or the airport. It wasn't, it was the train home. Yesterday a decision was taken to book a place on a train early-ish in the morning. Most of the group went for a later train as first class was quite cheap, sadly Patricia and I were on a deadline so a 10:00 departure it was.
Before I detail the train journey I have a few further things to raise from yesterday's tourism. The first item is summarised by the caption below the picture.
 |
| WTF |
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| The Balmoral hotel |
The station was not too busy when we arrived at 9:30 ish and we had time to grab a couple of coffee's and a copy of Viz to read on the train. Waiting on the platform for the train was a stressful affair, it was not clear if seat reservations would be honoured or not. That said I used to play Rugby to a high standard so was not that worried about coming out of the ensuing scrum without a seat. The final result was Ben 1: Old Lady 0. Result.
The train was quite a nice new one with plenty of space even for a taller gentleman like me. This did not help the journey to not be really really boring. Highlights of the journey were those on the left hand side of the train being able to see the Tyne bridge in Newcastle, Durham Cathedral and the Angel of the North. That would probably have made the journey pass much more quickly, however I was sat on the right hand side so got to see the boring side of Newcastle and some flooded fields.
That said the wind was so strong in places that the flooded fields had waves which was pretty cool.
 |
| the boring side of Newcastle |
 |
| The least exciting (non wavey) flooded fields |
We arrived home about 20 minutes late thanks to some broken rails or something near Newark. All in all not a bad journey even though returning by train was the third choice following flying and mini bus.
This year's away game visit completes the Six Nations away fixtures set for me. What I have learned over the past five years is always go to games in Italy, if you can't then Wales or Scotland are second best. Paris is a good weekend but the stadium doesn't have enough bars (more or less none), Dublin is not somewhere I will be hurrying back to.
Either way the Lions tour South Africa next year so expect the next Rugby blog to be from further afield.
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