... all the way to Inverness

Hope everyone's Christmas/winter festivities are proceeding to plan. My post Christmas Day meal Facebook post was simply "F'lup", good job cooking by my sister.

My journey up to Durham last Tuesday was mostly smooth, though my heart sank when I arrived at King's Cross and it was 1) packed and 2) nothing was moving. Fortunately as soon as I reported to Passenger Assistance they whipped me aboard my train (well, after several minutes of "How did you spell that again?" and "Could it be booked under someone else's name?").

OTOH we did have the following announcement as we set off a couple of minutes late: "I'd like to welcome everyone aboard the 12:00 Highland Chieftain to Inverness. I'd also like to apologise for conditions aboard today as due to the earlier failure of a train near Grantham we're the first train out of King's Cross in two hours and we have four full train loads of passengers aboard. And unfortunately that means it's standing room only and some of you will be standing all the way to Inverness, in eight hours."

Fortunately that 'standing room only' didn't affect coach A where I was (and I bring my own seat anyway), the guard did announce there were a few spaces in A, but no one ever moved up to find them and it was actually a better journey than last year (no 2yo fretting all the way north).