Our trip started bright and early on Saturday morning, I made sure that I had absolutely everything ready to go so that I could just go through my morning routine, and we'd be on our way... yeah, right *full of false optimism*. So the alarm clock goes at something obscene like 0700... we get ready and are at New Street on time, L collects the tickets (for our fixed-time train) and then turns to me and says "Have you got your railcard?" It was one of those moments where you feel your blood drain, quickly followed by that awful sinking sensation where you want to curl up in a fetal position and have the ground open up below you and swallow you into the dark abyss below. Then came the false glimmer of hope, was L trying to wind me up? He knew I'd forgotten it, he'd seen it on the table in the bedroom and picked it up, and was going to torture me with it. After 2-3 minutes of "you have it, you're just winding me up" and "no, I don't have it"... it finally set in - our train was leaving in 10 minutes. It would take at least 20 to get home and back by a cab. We could either go home and get it, losing out on both our tickets and paying for new ones (the most expensive option). I could go home and get my railcard and buy a new train ticket for the next train in an hour, while L took the scheduled train. Or we could wing it, and take the scheduled train and hope I don't get asked for my card, and if I did, I'd have to play dumb and feign surprise and try and get away with it.
Well, we opted for the latter, and somewhere past the industrial wasteland that is Wolverhampton, we were asked for our tickets, they were presented, ticked and returned. I would like to point out at this moment in time, that I am *NEVER* lucky with anything, I always get caught out even with a white lie, let alone something like this. I looked at L, and he grinned and gave me a "You lucky S.O.B." sort of look. Breakfast was had, and solitaire was played for pretty much the entire journey up. I'm surprised at how quick the trip actually went, L was pointing out all the little points of interest (FYI, he's a closet train geek lol) I didn't see any warning signs about any dragons or killer haggii.... but less than 30 seconds after passing the border, a little way past Gretna I saw the most peculiar thing ever. There were sheep in a field, not terribly noteworthy, especially in that part of the world - but its what one of these sheep did, is what was incredibly curious - it jumped. I have seen plenty of sheep in my life [insert requisite Welsh joke here] but I have never seen one jump before. I notched it up to being north of the border and in the badlands of southern Scotland... akin to The Expanse in Star Trek: Enterprise where the most bizzarre things happen, and laws of physics need not apply.
L drew me a map, just in case I got lost. From top to bottom: Norway (TR), John O'Groats, Ben Nevis, Aberdeen, Glasgow & Aberdeen
Just across the border, around about the time I saw the infamous jumping sheep.
We made it to Edinburgh by lunch time, and the weather was absolutely stunning. We dropped our stuff off at L's friends house (with whom we were staying) and set off to do all the touristy stuff. First on the agenda was Edinburgh Castle, which, to put it mildly - was less than inspiring. Thats not to undermine its historical and cultural value... but I've seen plenty of castles (as noted below)
Those are castles. This... not so much:
One thing was constant, small children were present at all the aforementioned castles *shudder*
The castle was great though, we got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels which I didn't even know existed. I decided that I wanted a picture of the native with his castle, so I directed L to stand in front of the central building for a picture. Now, those that know me know that I don't really care for people I don't know, in my pictures (when avoidable). Those that know L, know that he refers to anyone under 5'10 as "little people"now out of his peripheral vision, he could see some children and loudly said "Make sure you don't get the little people in the picture!" Now, at this present moment in time, The Great British Reserve that had been instilled in me at birth, lapsed... only momentarily of course. I snapped the picture as quickly as I could and promptly turned around, walked down the hill quite literally pissing myself laughing. What L didn't know, was that those children were not children at all, but midgets. What made it all the more awkward, was that everywhere we went after that, they happened to be in the same place as us.
We then left Edinburgh for Glasgow by train, where L and I parted company for a few hours. I went onwards to Loch Lomond and Balloch, I spent a few hours wandering around the grounds of Balloch Castle, and was hoping to go in and see it, but its unfortunately fenced off and boarded up and in a rather sorry state. After a late afternoon tea and dinner with Rosemary, we got the second to last train up to Aberdeen, getting there just a little before midnight.
More on that later.
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