A Torrid Journey

In the morning we headed over to John Lewis to see what treats it might hold in store. By the time we had had breakfast and a good wander round it was almost lunch time. We had not booked anywhere, and we were booked on early afternoon train, so it seemed prudent to head to lunch before places became to busy

Our chosen venue was Tiles Bar in St Andrew’s Sure, close to our hotel. This is yet another former bank building, Prudential Building Society in this case. It was not too busy when we arrived, and we were served quickly. While we were there it started to snow heavily and the pub filled as people took refuge from the weather.

Returning to the hotel to collect our luggage we discovered our train (and all later trains) to Aberdeen had been cancelled due to the arrival of Storm Barra. We headed over to the bus station and were able to get a place on a bus for Aberdeen which was due to depart in about half an hour.

It was very windy on the journey , and even in the bus we could feel it was being caught by gusts. We got to Dundee, and I think as we passed Discovery point we were still on time. From here to the bus station would only be about five minutes. It took us a further two hours to get to the bus station.

The road to the bus station was closed with police diverting the traffic. That was the last we saw of the police, though they were desperately needed to keep the traffic moving. Dundee centre was totally gridlocked. I have never experienced a traffic jam like it. We would be stopped for fifteen minutes at a time. We got to the bus station eventually, but to do so the driver had to adopt some fairly assertive tactics.

We decided we had been on the bus long enough at this point, so booked ourselves into a hotel. Unfortunately the room was very cold, but they assured us they had adjusted the heating and it would be warm in twenty minutes. We headed for dinner, but on our return nothing had changed, it was still just as cold. It was obvious the heating was not working, They gave us a different room, though of a lower category and somewhat cheaper. To apologise they said we could have a free breakfast. Well it was not free as I had paid for a more expensive room.