The late Mr. B or Nightmare on the national Express

My goodness, Sunday turned out to be a day and a half - understatement. Up early as usual after another restless night, pottered about and got all packed for my trip away.

Sparky arrived at 11.30 a.m. and we headed down to Bonnyrigg to the Committee meeting of the OSM - Soutra Isle, and arrived to discover that we were nearly an hour late !! with members wondering where we had gone to . However, the meeting, which was well attended finished and the office bearers remained for a somewhat chaotic rehearsal, just like the theatre, you just hope that it will be all right on the night , so to speak. Poor Mark was somewhat bemused as he has never been to one of these rehearsals before.
Left about 1 p.m. to head into town to catch my 2 p.m. train from Waverly - sounds simple, But - we ran into long queues of traffic about a mile from the station so I decided to get out and walk - this was the wise decision of the day , as everything around the Royal Mile, was stationary due to a parade assembling near the Worlds End Pub ( notorious for the double murder many years ago). passing through the parade spotted an ancient !!! motorcycle cop, another "Sparky" who i had not seen for ages causing mayhem in the road - so he and i had a conversation over his radio via his mate.
Into the Station in good time, managed a beer and was waiting on No 11 when the 2 p.m. train arrived - found my seat, sat down and waited , and waited and waited. Guard kept telling us there was a signal fault East of Edinburgh ( Drem) and that the train before us (1.30) was also held up. About 2.40 p.m. we were told our train was cancelled and we had to join the other on platform 2 - so there we were trying to get a full train packed into another full train !!! just like pouring a pint into another pint - does not work , No seats, bodies everywhere and tempers getting frayed. The Guards who I had passed were saying how stupid it was and then disappeared for their own safety.
At 3 pm. the next batch of passengers , for the 3 p.m. London train arrived and they tried to jam in as well !! getting worse - and then eventually we were told that the train was going to be diverted across country to Carlisle and then back over to Newcastle before going down the East Coast - so off we set. Problem then was that we were being slotted in between other trains and had to keep stopping and starting , and that the route from Carlisle to Newcastle is not high speed so we were over two hours late by the time we reached Newcastle. Due to the crowding the buffet car was not opened but some of the more vocal passengers raided the car and set off down the train dishing out "free" bottles of water, etc.
We were at Peterborough, two hours late, when things began to return to a semblance of order and seats were again available for everybody . Some folks had been sat in the toilet corridors, for four hours, and even the toilets were failing due to the strain.

Eventually arrived at London at 9.05 , some 2 hrs 20 mins behind schedule, onto the Tube and when I did get to the hotel, there was no reservation for me !!! Got that sorted and it was 10 p.m. before I had a a sight of a bed!!

Quick wash and took myself out into the night air for a wander, pizza and beer.
So now we wait to see what this fine day has to offer.