Back home, almost

The sleeper rolled very slowly into St Pancras, London, at 7.30am. It was strange to be back amongst so many people on a Monday morning, looking out the window of the sleeper to see the half-asleep (and fully asleep) commuters on their way to work. Part of me felt a little down for coming back to the busy city life after being in such a wonderful, sparsely populated place. But isn't it always like that after a holiday?

We hopped off the sleeper into full commuter traffic. London has a rule that bicycles cannot travel on a train before 10am on weekdays so we had breakfast in the station. We wanted to stay near our bicycles now that we were back in a place where people nick stuff that isn't nailed to the floor, but it was far too busy downstairs. I found a place upstairs that served pancakes. However, it was very posh and we didn't quite fit the clientele. No matter, we settled down on a sofa near our bicycles and enjoyed pancakes and coffee. After we'd stayed too long, we went downstairs and had a Starbucks, where I bumped into one of my work colleagues who was a little surprised to see me. I gave him some biscuits from the Isle of Mull - Lemon Melts, and quite possibly the best biscuits ever. This particular work colleague and I share a love of good biscuits and he was very happy with his unexpected biscuit bonus.

At 10.02, we hopped on a train home. Whisky treated us like strangers and disappeared through the cat flap. The pet sitter said he hadn't seen Whisky except for the flick of a tail vanishing out the door (he's so unsociable). The guinea pigs were very fine, and it was nice to be home.