Jan 25th, 2025

Author: donich_admin

Homeward bound

Yesterday when Norfolk was breezy and sunny, Scotland was hit with the worst storm in 20 years (or so they say – I think people exaggerate these days). Lochgoilhead was hard hit, and of course the power went out. Luckily R was ok because of the solar and the Powerwall. Even so, I havered over what to do.

Eventually, I decided to take my chances and try to get out of the North Norfolk gravity well to somewhere with trains or aeroplanes.

The train system was in absolute chaos. Basically I gave up on my reserved seats, and just jumped on any train that would take me northwards. All went ok until I got to Peterborough. The Edinburgh train was announced and turned up on the platform. Then five minutes before it was due to depart and while we were still taking our seats, there was an announcement that it was only going as far as Newcastle, and that they strongly recommended that no one should try to travel to Scotland that day.

I ignored the advice and got on the train. Ninety odd percent of the passengers got off, leaving the train almost empty. Turned out I was right, because about an hour in to the journey, they decided that they were going to go to Edinburgh after all.

Two hours late, we crawled into Waverly at 8:30. I knew that ScotRail had cancelled every one of their trains, so in a sneaky move I bought a Citylink bus ticket to Glasgow from the train. As soon as we got in, I dashed over to the bus station. There were about 500 people queuing for the Glasgow bus (it was like the scenes from the “North West Frontier” film with all the Indians packed into the last train out) and without a pre-booked ticket I would never have got a seat. By this time I had given up on getting home and had decided to go and stay with J in Glasgow.

Arriving in Glasgow, there were no taxis either at the bus station or at Queen’s Street Station. So I took the underground to Govan. There were no taxis there either and it was pouring with rain. I had to walk over a mile in the dark and the pouring rain.

An exhausted but triumphant woman arrived at J’s door at 10:45pm. Against all the odds I had made it.