Travelling Home .....
31st
January 2018 (Wednesday)
...... Travelling home; next update
from Ivy.
21.30 Oh my word .... Bonnie Scotland is cauld! The
journey from Sunny Sussex back to Fife was slightly frustrating. Janice took us (‘JB’ me) down to Uckfield station
in time to catch an earlier train than we had intended. Even so by the time
we left Crowborough, it
was ‘standing room only’. Crowborough
was only the third of ten stops, not including Uckfield (start station) and London
Bridge (where this service terminates);
so you can guess how tightly packed the train was by the time we reached
the penultimate stop East Croydon. Actually more people left the train here (East
Croydon) than got on it.
 |
| Aberdeen train - "Lincolnshire Echo", Kings Cross Station London. |
From London Bridge, we had to travel, by
Underground (Northern Line), to Kings X
. We arrived at Northern Line gates to
find a huge crowd of people being slowly filtered through the gates, this was
to prevent overcrowding on the platform below. I have never seen so many people just ‘stood
staunin’.... we joined them After
about five minutes we were through, and finally
arrived Kings X platform; it was mobbed.
If I
remember correctly, we got onto the third train that came in.... where we were
packed in even tighter than the Uckfield train, though we both got seats after
a couple stops.... and arrived at Kings X with time to spare. Enough spare time to have a cuppa.
The
Aberdeen train began loading, 20 minutes before departure, so ‘JB’ was able to
get settled in my seat, before he started
the journey back to Uckfield.
The
journey North was interesting. The train had to travel very slowly through line
side work between Grantham and Peterborough:
this cost us time, which gradually built up because we then were ‘out of
sync’ and had to wait for the line ahead
to clear a number of times. There was an announcement after York that
we would be 30 minutes late at our various destinations, so I phoned Jim and
Myra (who were picking me up at Kirkcaldy) to let them know that I’d be late in
arriving in Kirkcaldy. Unfortunately
another 29 minutes had been lost by the we got to Kirkcaldy ; and the train was 59 minutes late! A big ‘Thank You’ to Jim and Myra who patiently
waited, and had me back home in Ivy just after 16.00.... and took me up to “No3”
for a welcome home meal. I’m back in
the ‘Royal Burgh’, and ready to rock ‘n’ roll!
I’m
having an early night in bed.;.. and probably a sleep in tomorrow morning: it has been a long, and busy, day.
