Shivering again - time for the snow blades

I think the trams in Manchester are just wonderful - rattling through the countryside on what used to be old railway lines , and then in the City Centre they mix freely with pedestrians, cars, buses and all . Thought I was doing well when I headed for the station early - First Class ticket in hand and made for the 1st Class lounge - only to discover that it was only for Virgin's

(passengers) . Seems that they did ask the other rail companies if they wanted to share the cost of the lounge but they declined.

Train North was on time, but once again held up - and to add insult to injury the heating kept coming on and going off so by the time we reached Edinburgh the old feet were a bit cold.

I had a nice wee blether to a lovely lady , Kaylin all the way from Salt Lake City, USA, and we (guard and I) were tormenting her about needing a passport to get over the Border into Scotland, however she left at Penrith.

Into Haymarket and dropped in to The Mercat bar to await my lift. RGB appeared with another resident of the USA - Bill, a former navy pilot and we had an interesting chat about his exploits while visiting the UK air bases - I liked his tale about flying a massive plane the length of Loch Ness at two thousand feet whilst his crew all peered out the windows looking for Nessie !! Reading between the lines I am sure he had enough electrical gadgetry on board to spot a tiddler so Nessie, if she was at home would have been easy meat. He was enjoying the delights of the City while he poor wife was attending a series of meetings here.

By the time we got home last night the snow as trying hard to come back on and all the roads from Hillend , A702, and especially Lowries Den were covered - so during the night I kept wakening up and had convinced myself that we were well buried by snow - wrong , nothing worse by daybreak here, which was not the case in other parts of central Scotland where chaos was reigning again - M8 closed at Harthill again.

However, home now and getting set for tonight's meeting at 720 Dalhousie Bonnyrigg, and then an early bed before heading south in the morning