Slept in!
I woke up, looked at the clock and groaned. Timshel and I had slept in on the day we were due to leave Scotland!
The residents of Edinburgh were thus treated to early morning sight of two frowning power-walking parents, one with buttons in the wrong button holes, the other with bed-hair, pushing:

1. a baby in a buggy (‘stroller’ for the non-British among you) looking like a battered sav in his roll of blankets.
2. a whimpering bike trailer, barely visible under the weight of two 20kg backpacks, two panniers, a small backpack and some gloves and scarves that we didn’t have time to put on.

One minute to spare
The start of our 30 minute journey to the train station saw us travelling Indian file, heads down, walking fast, muttering quietly
Left the shampoo in the bathroom, dang. Forgot to check under the bed for Reuben’s red sock go, poo.
Timshel, pushing the bike trailer, had to constantly stop to let oncoming people through as the trailer took up the entire (very narrow) footpath. Then the footpath widened as we entered the avenue into town, the clouds cleared, and we were able to walk alongside each other and exchange excited Aren’t we crazy grins.

There is a pattern to the way we travel as a couple; Aren’t we crazy grins grins usually come just after Things are crazy bickerings, and just before I can’t believe we pulled that one off faces.

With four minutes to spare, we arrived at the station. With three minutes to spare, we discovered that the ticket machine wouldn’t recognise our reserved tickets. With one minute to spare we made it onto the right platform with tickets in hand. Interested commuters looked on whilst one parent, with vegemite on her cheek, put the brakes on the stroller and started pulling backpacks out of the bike trailer whilst the other parent, with one shoelace undone, started creating a small mountain of luggage in the middle of the platform. Stepping around the mountain a smiling station attendant approached us and chirped
Awful lot of luggage you have there.

Awful lot of luggage
We did have a lot of gear. We were moving to England. If we were bike-touring or back-packing, I would never contemplate trying to travel with this much stuff but we were trying to LIVE overseas for a year, and given that we were living off our Australian dollars the temptation to keep what we had rather than buy stuff with pounds was rather strong.
You know it’s general policy to only take on the train what you can carry announced the attendant. We grimaced, and while struggling to fold up the bike trailer, explained that we had, in fact, talked to railway staff days ago as we were concerned about exceeding baggage limit. We had been told there would be no problems.
Oh you must have talked to GNER staff, this is a Virgin train, he replied.
But we booked our tickets through GNER we protested.
Well, the trains can only take so much weight. It’s like aircraft travel. If we exceed certain weights, it affects our safety.
As I wrestled to unclip a pannier clip that had got caught on Reuben’s shoe, I felt a flicker of fear and found myself thinking
If he doesn’t let us get on this train, I’ll chuck a nancy…

The attendent watched with interest as Timshel removed the wheels of the trailer, and folded them into the body of trailer. I glanced worriedly down the tracks. He lowered his voice
I don’t mean to be a pain or anything, it’s just that we have to put a limit on things somehow.
He then turned and walked off. He talk four steps, and then double-backed.
Listen, if you get on carriage G, there is a baggage space at the back. Put your stuff in there, and then find your seats later.
He smiled and then was gone as the train pulled up.

Get on board NOW!
We located the right carriage, with luggage space as promised. Timshel wrestled the trailer on board whilst carrying the heaviest pack, I lifted the stroller into the train and returned for the rest of our luggage. I was still on the platform when the whistle blew and an attendent started waving a paddle-shaped instrument that seemed to suggest Get on board NOW!. I grabbed the last of our luggage and jumped onto the nearest carriage. I hoped Timshel knew that I was on board. I found Timshel and Reuben underneath a pile of luggage several carriages later. We organised our luggage, found seats and as the suburbs of Edinburgh whizzed past, exchanged I can’t believe we pulled that one off faces.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Travel, Edinburgh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.