Posted on 1 April 2012
5.15 a.m. is far too early to get out of bed. It’s even worse when, for the last 90 minutes or so of scheduled sleeping time, one is wide awake. However, that was my fate this morning.
As ever, we scrabbled around at the last minute and I couldn’t find my Tilley hat and Jan left her water bottle on the kitchen table, but we were on the platform at Southend Central with about 5 minutes to spare for the 6.44 train. Watching the perfect dawn bathe the fishing-boat-bobbing sea in horizontal light was ample reward for our lack of sleep.
Crossing London was uneventful, our train was announced about 5 minutes before it was due to leave, we got away to time and arrived promptly in Carlisle some 4 hours and 6 minutes after we set off from Euston. I was a bit concerned when an irreponsibiilty of BMX riders arrived at the bike carriage before us, but the guard was sensible and we all got on. Jan’s bike lost its dangly bike space cherry, which, by the nature of these things was over very quickly and we were in Dumfries, having forgotten precisely how close to the station the Ferintosh guest House was. We made tea, ourselves at home and up for lost time and were soon on the way to see Jan’s cousin, whose lovely house, set in several acres of land, is only a couple of miles from Dumfries. We had tea and cake followed by beer and crisps and then lasagne and salad washed down with a good red wine, the conversation flowed along with the wine and liqueur chocolates and it was after dark that we set off for the guest house again. I finished off the Glen Moray whisky and then prepared for sleep.