Road Trip to Scotland – 3

So…. yesterday’s unplanned stop in Glasgow was probably a good idea overall, albeit expensive due to my error. With everything else sorted, we relaxed in the hotel room until it was time to get dinnner and instead of going to ‘spoons, T found a place called ‘Bloc+’ which was a short walk from the hotel, allowed us to get a quick look at Glasgow and get food at a decent price as it was pasta monday with £4 mac and cheese specials:

Food was good and served pretty quickly, and we went back to the hotel with some Sainsbury’s cheesecake for dessert, via a quick ‘we’ve been to Glasgow’ selfie…

….via the discovery that my use of the word ‘tron’ for everything has become a religion:

Watched another Bobby Fingers video instead of whatever was on TV. Always entertaining and the detail is incredible. Plus Steven Seagal is an arse, so double-payoff for me.

Then, the usual thing – bed at 9… wake up at 3, try to get back to sleep (which I did eventually for about an hour or so) and down for the hotel breakfast, which was OK, albeit always better in the nice bit in the front of the hotel, as chosen by my wiser half!

Much coffee today, although I don’t think it was as strong as billed by the machine, but seems to have perked me up enough as I wait while T gets some provisions from the camper as we’re another day away from it (all things going well this time of course!).

Next up, the train journey. There are lots of highlights, and I’ll probably just do a video of a few things and put them together on youtube but take some nice stills if possible.

Got to the station really early to be sure. Finaly the train appeared on the departures board:

Got on the train, got the reserved seats and set off….

…. and then the train went for about 30 minutes, and then stopped. For a while. An announcement was made but we couldn’t really hear it.

Long story short, train back to the station, and cancelled. Various reasons were proffered, but the deal is that it’s cancelled and we’re not going. AGAIN. A bus replacement service was offered but takes hours, isn’t a scenic ride and after speaking to a regular it turns out that it’s a horrible journey via bus (he did it a a lot as worked in Mallaig for years as boat crew). Later train might run, but would arrive at 22:30, mean no point in the hotel stay and no evening meal. Another washout.

So after even more rejigging (another cancelled hotel stay, a new Airbnb this time as no hotels available for some reason), ticket issued with a dodgy piece of hand-written paper saying today’s ticket is now valid for tomorrow, and paying for more parking for the camper and moving the York campsite… finally T found another hotel here in Glasgow for the night, which is very plush in comparison to last night’s worn-down victorian place next to the station. It’s all exposed concrete and much nicer than last night’s place. Plus a lot quieter (as the other place had train announcements until late and they started again at about 5am).

Ate the lunch that T had bought for the train in the room (M&S does some amazing food, thanks Will!), and are now just watching TV. Again.

So, hopefully tomorrow the issues with the track will be sorted. This is getting into being quite the ordeal, but being rested is at least making it OK. Energy levels are OK as long as I eat at the right time, and we have plenty of medication on hand which is damn useful… essential in fact. But it does need to work out tomorrow otherwise things will be getting a bit tight. We now won’t be back until Saturday. But at least today wasn’t my fault this time!

Funny thing is that I have zero interest in Mallaig per se, it’s the scenery there and back. So that’s why I flat out refused to take the bus. T was her gracious self as ever, and we worked as a team to get everything done. The only loss today (other than more financial stuff) was my water bottle that I managed to jettison between the station and hotel. Smallest error I’ve made in the last few days, but we need to go fix that as it’s important to keep hydrated for anyone, but particularly me for medical reasons. So we do need to find a shop!

Here’s hoping tomorrow goes actually to plan.

Update/Punchline. Airbnb no longer available, so we’ve had to change plans. Again. Now getting off one stop earlier, but staying in a hotel as there are no hotels or Airbnb rooms in Mallaig on Wednesdays. I guess tours or something stop in Mallaig on Wednesdays and it’s just flat out, but one thing’s for sure, I’m not going there ever. And I was told it “stinks of fish” today by the guy who I worked there a lot so maybe it’s a small mercy. Hotel booked, and missing only 7 minutes of train journey with no particular scenery at that point so it’s all good. Hopefully.