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On the way home!

It’s happened again!  Half past eight we agreed!  Half past eight!  Not at all confusing you would think.  But somewhere along the way Glenn seemed to hear a different conversation that went something along the lines of “lets set our alarms for ten past seven and then roll over and go back to sleep!”  The trouble is Geordie is a Mk I model and he has an “on” and an “off” switch…there is no snooze!  So Geordie carefully slid out of bed with the stealth like method I can only akin to the sound of 14 pneumatic drills pounding on the ceiling.  And the day started.  Oh…In case you were wondering Lynne and Glenn, being Mk III models had slid into snooze mode…we may see them later in the day!

0830 arrives and Mike and Geordie now get restless…the car has been prepared for the off.  All we need now is Lynne and Glenn.  Hooray they were up!  So the car got packed and we went to get the trusty bikes.  The bikes that have traversed nearly 500 miles of the roughest terrain that the UK has to offer without incident!  And guess what…Lynne had a puncture.  Now we are sure that she had popped out in the night and deflated the tyre just in case Geordie had a mad plan in the middle of the night to “warm down” and take Lynne for a 20 mile ride around Fort William.  Either way it had given up the ghost…the first damage to be registered for the Bikes…final score Bikes 1…cars 2!  We win!

Once packed we all popped in to Fort William for breakfast before starting on the long trip home.  Only 564 miles and 7.5 million commuters all rushing to the south for the weekend lay ahead of us!  Oh and the small matter of a detour to Glasgow to swap cars again.  We may need to clean this one first though…The “Borat” costume is humming a little and it was left in the car overnight. 

The plan we agreed on over breakfast is to drive as far South as we can until we hit the traffic or we get tired.  See where we get to and make a decision then. 

The team have just popped into Fort William to get pressies for their loved ones etc.  I am sat with eyes glued on the railway platform ahead of me.  I am told that the 1043 Nairn may be the EWS 67007 towing the “Caledonian Sleeper”.  Now last time I saw that baby it was a Burgundy mix and I remember reading it underwent a refit in late 2006.  I am so excited…I wonder if they knocked that dent and scratch out of the front quarter of the trailing carriage?

 I’ll leave you all for now…hopefully the rest of our tales can be enjoyed round the camp fire whilst toasting the odd marshmallow or two and sipping on some hot chocolate!

Thank you all for reading and putting up with the “slight” digressions along the way.  I’ll leave you with a one word summary of the adventure from each of the team:

Lynne = “exhilarating”
Geordie = “Awesome”
Glenn = No Comment
Mike = “Why”

Got to go now…trains coming in….