CraigBlog

Tag: Train

  • Training ‘Home’ for Christmas

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    With apologies to the late Chris Rea. Checked out of the hotel at dawn, having packed up the night before, and trundled my way to the station. Hadn’t really wanted to still be in temporary accommodation after over a month at the job, but getting Stafford landlords to actually respond to their own adverts was…

  • It begins, as always, with an indifferent railway station coffee

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    This is the last few months of my ‘sabbatical’ – I’m going to a convention in the US, on to NZ via a week in Fiji, then back through the US for two more conventions, and back to the UK. That’s the plan, anyway. The trip from Aylesbury to Heathrow wasn’t entirely smooth. I got…

  • Riding A Little Train

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    Last full day in Aberystwyth, so I decided to ride the Vale of Rheidol railway. I’d originally intended to go on the 10:00 trip, but at some point I’d turned my alarm off, and by the time I woke up it was clear that the morning trip wasn’t going to be happening, so I had…

  • The Village / Portmerion

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    Look, I’m going to be making a lot of references to the TV show The Prisoner in this post, because this is where the outside scenes were shot. So if there’s something that makes even less sense than usual, that’s why. Getting to Portmerion is kind of a pain in the arse it you don’t…

  • Getting to Stirling

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    For no reason beyond “Never been there, and people mentioned the castle”, I went to Stirling. Turns out to be pretty easy to get to; I could have caught the train as it passed through a station close to my hotel, but I decided to catch the thing from Waverley instead, mostly because I wasn’t…

  • Thurso to Inverness to Aberdeen

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    My traditional paranoid room check involved looking under the bed, which answered the question of “how come the shower drains so slowly? are they not clearing the trap?”. Given that the under bed area had an empty water bottle and a large-size beer can, I’m going to guess that deep cleaning isn’t a thing that…

  • Getting to Thurso

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    The hostel dorm was louder last night, not due to people packing up or talking, but due to general sleep noise. Pretty sure the guy in the bunk above me was humming in his sleep, and there was way more snoring than before. Churn for the room seemed to be about 50%, which seems high?…

  • Aylesbury to Glasgow

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    On the move again. I had some things I needed to get done in Aylesbury, such as Dental Stuff ( all fine, and they’re happy that nothing bad happened while I was travelling ) & renewing my UK Passport ( needed to do so a bit early because some places want you to have 6…

  • Tam Coc to Hoi An

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    My train wasn’t until 5:46 pm , so I had a chunk of the day to kill in Tam Coc. The homestay very nicely offered to organise a taxi for me, so I essentially had until 4 pm to wander around.

  • Heading Back

    —

    by

    Craig
    in

    Walk to the JW, Taxi to the Airport, Flight to Chicago, Airport Transit to T5, Long-Ass line for Security, Flight to Dublin, Flight to Heathrow, Train into Paddington, Tube to Marylebone, Train to Princes Risborough, Rail Replacement Bus to Aylesbury, Walk to the Travelodge. Gave myself plenty of time with an afternoon flight so I…