Saturday 18th September - Back Home

A pretty good night's sleep and less bumpy when we woke up at 7.30. The travelling kettle played a blinder for us. There is nothing like a cup of tea to start the day. Things then took a turn for the worse as the tannoy announced that we would be arriving an hour and a half late - seriously eroding the time avaiable for our connection. More tea and an outrageously expensive croissant for breakfast. It did give us plenty of time to go up on deck in the Force 7 and view the passing delights of Teesside. What a thrill!

Eventually we were sailing up the Tyne and the guest care staff had organised that we were first off the boat. As we were waiting one of the disembarking crew mentioned that he had a train to catch 20 minutes before ours. We quickly did a deal with him to share a taxi and got there just in time for him. Sod's law said that our train would be 10 minutes late and what's more going via Carlisle adding an hour and a half at least to the journey. What made it worse was that Dave had not brought his trackplans to follow the details of this fresh route.

The journey was not too bad and we got the chance to bore a couple of Americans who were on their way to visit Auld Reekie for the first time. Not many people can honestly claim to have travelled from London to Edinburgh via both Newcastle and Carlisle so I guess they have been really lucky. Alex met us at Waverley and allowed us the use of Rosena's car to drive home.

Here endeth this blog. Watch for more thrilling adventures in the near future.