Sunset over Cardross (backblip)

We left home at 7.45 and got to the station in time for the 7.59 to Cheltenham. Folks in their tweeds strewed themselves around the carriage, drinking from cans and bottles. It was, of course, Cheltenham
Gold Cup day, and usually I’d have asked them for a tip and placed a bet, but I wasn’t sure if I should be gambling before a funeral. At Cheltenham. they poured off and the station was under high security, so I couldn’t leave to buy a coffee at the good cafe. When the train for Edinburgh pulled in, around 100 betweeded punters alighted from one carriage alone, each clutching a beverage. The train, with its stained and spotted carpets, was awash with empty bottles too. We were lucky to get a seat, and I had to reprimand a French woman for leaving a small child standing while she filled two seats with her ‘luggage’s’. She stormed off, and I thought that my mother would have approved (of my action, not her storming).

We missed our connection at Edinburgh Waverley because the train had slowed down in Yorkshire, so we had to wait for the next train to Glasgow. Waverley appears to have changed a great deal, with overhead passages and refinements I’d never noticed before. We made our way to Glasgow, found the Oban train already gone, so I sought out a cafe, and found Off the Rails in Dundas street. We squashed ourselves and all our luggage into this establishment, and after we’d eaten and drink, I left Steve sitting there and wandered around the Merchant City in the golden glow of a mid-March evening.

Eventually we got onto the last Oban-bound train, and watched the sun sink lower and lower into the water. By 9.15 we were at Connel ferry, the stop before Oban, where my sister TML picked us up, and we repaired to the local hotel for a much-needed drink, before hitting the eccentric B and B that was to our home for the next few days. TMLHereandthere has written about the B and B, and the hotel, so please do pop over to her blip if you want the glorious details.