(written by Dave)

We are on an overnight sleeper train from London to Scotland.  We’ve never done this before, how exciting.  Nancy hates long car rides and ferries – I’m not sure how I talked her into this train thing.  We’ve only just left the platform and the train is bouncing every which way – airsick bands and Dramamine have been deployed.  Like I said, it’s an overnight train, so we are hoping that we sleep most of the journey.  I’ve snapped a few photos of the train and surrounds for your enjoyment.  Our enjoyment, well, time will tell.  I’ve taken the top bunk in case one of us has to get up more often than the other – no prizes for guessing who that might be – fingers crossed.

We had a great time in London.  Leigh and Simon treated us like part of the family.  We enjoyed a quiet couple days and got all of our chores done.  Thanks guys for letting us invade your normally tranquil home.

I was hoping to get out to Slough to see some of my old work colleagues but ran out of time.  Hello to Faye, Nick, Steve, Bert, Andy, Jim, Helen and everyone else.  It would have been fun to catch up but then again, you probably had work to do and don’t need to hear yarns of bicycle travel.

In all of the excitement about the train, I almost forgot to mention that we rode 12k from Leigh’s house, across the center of London, in rush hour to reach the train station.  London’s mayor (Boris) has really been trying hard to make walking and bikes the way to travel in London.  He is having some quite an effect from my point of view.  That is not to say that the city is car free, far from it in fact.  But I can remember my first trip to London in the mid-1990s and I can’t remember seeing a bicycle anywhere.  There are more people cycling now than you can count.  Rush hour traffic was still crazy but fewer cars meant we could take a direct route and make it safely.  Progress for sure.  Now, if Boris could just make it illegal to text on your smart phone while walking, he’d be making real change – honestly, the most dangerous thing on the street now is people looking down at their phones while walking.  You can never tell if they will stop or not – and bikes don’t make enough noise to alert them.  I just yell a lot – oh well, beats hitting someone.

So, tomorrow, Scotland – my ancient homeland on my mother’s side.  Not sure where we will end up or how we will feel when we get there.  All we know now is that we get off at the last stop when the train runs out of track.  Updates to follow.

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