Last station of the Cross - King's Cross.

We left my sister's house in Hampton at 9.45am on Sunday and arrived home in Oban at 9.45pm. A long twelve hours. We had to come via King's Cross and Edinburgh, I suppose because of the usual engineering works. The train was absolutely solid, with people standing and baggage blocking the corridors - something to do with the computer breakdown on the airlines maybe.

I expect to have to stand on the London Underground, but not all the way from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Totally chock-a-block - was it the Edinburgh marathon yesterday? 

Worst of all was the Glasgow - Oban train. We were 'entertained' by a dozen or so men, mostly in the 50-60 age group I would think, who got on in Glasgow after having drink taken, and proceeded to take more and more as the journey progressed. Lots of back-slapping, hand-shaking and other masculine touching up, which began as mildly funny and became seriously annoying as they got gradually louder. The real low point came when they were joined by two women, to use a polite term, who shrieked and shouted and drank beer and spirits out of bottles. One was probably in her fifties, the other older, a granny I would think, who ended up on one man's knee. I could see other passengers looking pretty horrified and the ticket collector tried his best, even taking some of their drinks away later on, but some of them were still drinking as we pulled into Oban. 

I felt ashamed to be living in the same town and will be having a little chat with ScotRail. It'll be the car next time, I think! 

Welcome home to Oban!