So the day came to head north to Scotland, but not without Edwards lovely grandma feeding us as much food as possible and giving us as much as we could take on the train. It was a bit sad to know we were kind of on our own from now on, with no family to stop with. On the other hand I was also very excited to be heading to the land of Lochs as I feel a connection with Scotland that I don’t feel elsewhere, even though I am more English than Scottish. But hey, since when did anything I feel make sense.
We trained first to Manchester where we got on our next 4+’hour long train to Glasgow. Unfortunately as we have train passes we don’t book seats and so far haven’t had any issues jumping aboard any train we like (which has been awesome). This time we weren’t so lucky and got caught on a train where all the seats were booked and there was no luggage space. So my idea of sitting peacefully for 4 hours, blogging as we made our way to the Scottish countryside was replaced with a very busy train with no room to sit for the first 3 hours.
Luckily the north English landscape more than made up for our less than ideal travelling circumstances with precious glimpses of the Lake District with huge glistening bodies of water, rolling paddocks and worn down skeletons of stone cottages. When we come back to the UK the Lake District is near the top of my list to explore along with Cornwall. Due to the fact it’s spring, every field had both young and old, horses and foals, sheep and lambs, cows and calls and ducks and their babies (ducklings?). It was rather wonderful.
Eventually we got a seat and space for our suitcases and were able to soak up Scotland in good old second class comfort. The views were amazing, rocky hillsides and tumbling mountains cut through by brooks and rivers, a landscape where I didn’t see a soul. Eventually we wound our way into Glasgow Central (where there were plenty of souls) and transferred to our train to the hotel where we were joined by a very well behaved dog. Our hotel was quite central which was good so despite the long train we got there at a pretty respectable time. The hotel was on a block with 3 churches (excessive?) and yet still felt a little rough, but that might just have been because it was raining and we were the coldest we had been so far. This trip has taught me that I am nothing if not biased by the weather conditions, so sue me.
After settling into our room (which was huge! Any room where I can actually open my suitcase is a blessing) we went out I’m search for food. We settled with a delicious Indian dinner (the easiest way to locate cheap vegetarian food) during which I couldn’t understand a word in the Glasgow/Indian accent. We then walked home through the park we were staying beside (Queens park) which was pleasant, despite the fact that it was freezing. Then it was home to watch my new favourite Uk tv show. It’s a docudrama about a welsh contact centre and it’s good quality stuff. I think my work should make one when I get home.