Barbara & Tom walking and eating from Painswick to Edinburgh

26-June-06

I set an alarm for 6:00 but woke at 4:00. The birds were serenading, or preparing to serenade - tuning up, caterwauling.

The friendliest of the hotel help set up the tea and coffee while I was patiently waiting on the balcony. She had the first cockney accent I'd heard and I loved listening to her. She told me about the local birds and had advice about great places to go sightseeing and hiking. Maybe next time.

We both had porridge (drenched in drambuie which, of course, pissed me off) and checked out. After correcting the room rate, the total was about what I'd expected. This was when I learned that we were charged Ł2 every time they brought us a cup or coffee or tea (Ł4.5 if we asked for it after dinner since they also brought the petit fours). We were hosed.

As soon as we started off the water idiot light came on, along with a loud alarm. At the same time Barbara noticed a truck parked in the road so close to the driveway that she didn't know how to get around it. That's how I got to drive back to Oxford. We searched the car looking for the bonnet release and finally found it. The water was only a little low but I poured my water bottle in and it was happy. (I, on the other hand, was thirsty). We drove off without further incident, except that I missed a turn (the road was poorly marked on the map) and went all the way into gridlocked Cheltenham instead of taking a bypass. Still, we arrived only 20 minutes later than we'd promised, earlier than we'd expected.

I had crammed the left hubcap back on that was hanging off after smashing into a few curbs and, fortunately, they had marked that it had some scratches when we left. They didn't complain about the scratches on the left mirror (althought they noticed them.) No further charges!

I'd tried to arrange train tickets on the internet and the best deal I could find was Ł158, each, one way - about $1000 for both round trip. I held my breath at the ticket counter but they charged us under Ł200 for the whole thing. I was pretty excited until we got onboard. Barbara found a seat but by the time I found a place to cram the bags, it was standing room only. I stood by our bags for awhile but people had such a hard time getting past me to go to the shop or the toilet that I finally joined about 8 others standing in the vestibule between cars.

The cars are so well air-conditioned that most people are wearing coats. The vestibule was so stuffy and hot that I was thrilled everytime someone flushed the toilet in the next car. It used our room for some sort of vent and a cool breeze would suck my shirt against the vent creating my own private a/c.

At one very popular stop people were fighting their way over piles of luggage to get to our little room so they could get off and others were trying to get on. We yelled at the outside people to let the inside out first but the door closed trapping a very surprised woman and the young man behind her. I don't know how many people weren't able to get on.

The woman provided great entertainment telling us that this was the second time it had happened and her friend, who had been waiting for her right outside the train, would be so angry and afraid, "She's very nervous." The young man behind her just nodded patiently. He seemed accustomed to it.

As we came to the next station an announcement informed us that we were running a little late but the connecting train to Glasgow was on time at gate 4b. To get there you'll need to "go up the lift, over the tracks, I'd take the stairs back down to 4b instead of the lift, or you could go down the lift take the subway under the tracks and take the lift back up...". All my cell mates cracked up. The poor woman had been crowding the door ever since her missed stop. When she realized the opposite door would be opening at this stop, she panicked a little and climbed over the piles of bags to the other side. We all had another good laugh.

Nearly everyone in the vestibule and quite a few others got off after about an hour and I finally got a seat. It was even a facing seat across from Barbara. Not nearly as interesting as the vestibule antics but much more comfortable. After another hour or so the woman next to Barbara began talking to us, extolling the virtues of the lakes district, like everyone else. She was nearly teary-eyed when she told us about York, her home and the next stop. It was a flat farming area with another dense urban core and blackened ornate ancient buildings.

After she left we had the seats and table to ourselves for a stop or two. Then a couple got on with reserved seats and I had to move and sit next to Barbara. They were all prissed up in a suit and dress that didn't seem to fit into an office or an opera, maybe some sort of awards show. He lectured on for hours about some sort of business deal. I put on my protective headphones and tried to will them away. After he ran out of wind they played kissyface and surrepticiously felt each other up. I wished I had Zaphod Beeblebrox's sunglasses that went opaque when needed.

Well, five hours sitting on the train was about as tiring as one hour of standing but the views were much better. All the English cities had ornate churches and rows or groups of identical housing units - whether single family, townhouse style or condo complexes. Maybe they were all once company towns. Once we hit Scotland the meadows seemed greener, much hillier, with an occasional castle or ruin poking up in the middle of nowhere. Then we passed along the coast with green hilly shorelines. Finally, after at least 20 stops, we were in Edinburgh.

The train station was open air except that it was covered by an iron and glass canopy like a conservatory. We grabbed a cab to the Botanic House and were really too tired to see much. A sign on the hotel door said to ring bell or come down to the basement bar. We couldn't see the bar so we rang the bell and the bartender eventually came running up. Our self-catering apartment is the next basement room over from the bar. It's huge! Two bedrooms, large dining/living room, odd little galley kitchen with everything except a refrigerator. (We finally found it hidden in a closet behind a chair in the living room, along with all the expense reports from the bar.) There's no room for a fridge in the kitchen because it has a dishwasher, oven/range, microwave and A WASHER/DRYER!!!! It isn't a stacker with the dryer over the washer - one tumbler does both jobs. We'll find out how well because all our dirty socks and underwear are now in the process of becoming clean, I hope.

We decided to eat at the bar because we're too spacey to think of anything else to do. We feel a little like we've been on a boat all day, like we're still rocking back and forth. I guess riding a train is almost like riding the waves. We had a decent but strange bowl of carrot/orange/tomato soup and a very good burger with lots of fries.

I decided I needed a quick walk around the block before collapsing in front of the football match. We're in one of those solid blocks of buildings. We realized in Oxford and reinforced the idea in Painswick and here, that most everything is built on the city-wall paradigm. Build an inpenetrable wall and put all the cool stuff inside. This wall has the hotel and bar, several apartments, including ours, a dentist and complementary therapist office. (I could use a complement.) Next to that is the entrance to the Botanic Garden. It was closed but it meant that my walk around the block would be around the perimeter of the entire garden.

I think the hardest thing about touring Edinburgh will be discerning the castles from the homes. Nearly every building around the garden is huge and ornate. It must be very cold here too because every house has several chimneys and every chimney has several stovepipes (or whatever you call them) coming out. I counted eleven pipes coming out of one chimney. Even our apartment has two fireplaces (one displaying shells, the other pinecones).

It is a little chilly here, which thrills me. After my walk I came in and put on my shorts but Barbara was wearing flannel pajamas, wrapped in a blanket and made me turn on the radiators.

I found a book by my beloved Robert Louis Stevenson (RLS) called Picturesque Old Edinburgh. He says, "The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and a downright meterological purgatory in spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate."

It isn't that cold.

Mileage - either 3 or 400.