Journeys

I've been on the road a lot today. I caught these two walking down Leith Street this morning out of the bus window, as I went in to work. The steam train (pulled by the locomotive Sir Nigel Gresley, apparently) was just pulling out of Waverley as I arrived there this afternoon. I sent the picture to our little group with N&A and N sleuthed it for me and told me it was the Edinburgh Summer Explorer (link is to a slightly different variant of what they ran today), heading back to York via Carlisle. Scenic (if pricey) on a day of very warm weather, as these pictures by an enthusiast make clear. I had my own scenic train ride in the early evening, up to Inverness, where I was met by Mr A with the car. Lovely light out of the window.

I was also on the go around the university backwards and forwards to meetings, some of which were a bit awkward. And then I had to fight my way down to Waverley through the crowds. Very unpleasant, and quite risky because you are forever having to step off the curb.

It was beautifully cool in the north after the oppressive heat of the city, and Mr A and I sat in the gloaming (but indoors) drinking a couple of glasses of wine as I tried to relax. We're having to substantially rearrange our plans for the next month or so, pursuant to some news coming in, but by the time we went to bed we had the outlines of a plan. It's going to involve a fair bit of coming and going in the car and actually it is now plain that today will have been my last journey on the train for quite a while. Sad, but there we are.