Edinburgh Christmas Fair

Why do we wait to start new habits in January? Habit, I suppose. And herd mentality. No one’s fist-bumping you in August when you say, ‘that’s it, I’m giving up/starting a new/stopping this/learning that’, are they? But the whole world’s behind you on January 1st with your list of betterment plans, support apps and rubbish bags full of the old you to kick to the curb while dragging in rubbish bags of the new you and sorting them into the closets and food shelves and head space of your brand new, sparkly year.
Well, this year I decided to throw out the habit of changing habits in January. Yep, I’m a month ahead of myself already. I’ve already started my new travel habit of taking a train whenever I can instead of flying. My first attempt is a Christmas trip to Edinburgh. I could have flown for about £50, a journey that would take about 45 minutes. Not me. New habit. I’m going to spend a few hundred pounds and seven hours on a train! It will be fun, I said! It will show me parts of the country I’ve never seen before, I said! There’s a whole world out there between Taunton and Edinburgh I need to view from a comfy carriage, over a cup of tea and a good book. I can people watch as they surf up and down the carriages and note down dialogue fodder for new characters in books. I’m picturing scenes from The Orient Express, with curtains and white-jacketed staff, and maybe silver teapots. I’m picturing porters for my luggage. I quickly realise I need to update my TV viewing to something more recent than an Agatha Christie film starring Ingrid Bergman.
Here’s how my Christmas New December’s Resolution journey went down…
As I step onto the train in Taunton, the announcer announces smugly that this train will no longer travel to Edinburgh. Due to storms along the coast, the train will now terminate in Newcastle. The doors are closing as the announcement finishes. What the heck am I to do? I frantically search my mental map for where Newcastle sits in relation to Edinburgh. How long a walk is it? Uber distance? It doesn’t take long to shelve those ideas.
The good news: I chose to travel first class, as a Christmas present to myself. This means there is a helpful member of staff in the carriage who thumps my rerouting questions into her device and comes up with… get off the train in Birmingham and travel up the west coast instead of the east, where the storm is worse. Okay. Sounds reasonable, though it upsets my idea of a long, leisurely direct journey in the same seat with the heavy suitcase in situ until arrival at the Scottish hotel. I perch on the edge of my seat, again consulting the mental map to ascertain where in the world Birmingham is and how many stops that is from Taunton. It turns out I have four stops and a couple of hours. I didn’t get that from the mental map by the way, which has no idea where Birmingham is. (Thirty years in America has not done my UK geography any favours.) No, I remembered Cousin B had loaded an app on my phone that tells you everything about trains. ‘Everything’ turns out to be a relative term. I open said app and it still shows I’m on a train due to land in Edinburgh – Opps. No plane talk here, please. We’re train people now – due to ARRIVE in Edinburgh. I’m in Cheltenham before the app updates to say the train is, in fact, not going to Edinburgh. It’s also Cheltenham before a cup of tea is offered.

First Class tea

I’d been told wonderful stories of drinks service every thirty minutes in first class and hot food and snacks and all the things you’d expect on the Orient Express; except the murders. Hopefully. Unfortunately, the announcements keep coming about how they haven’t got enough crew members to offer food service. Not just for first class either, because the buffet carriage is also closed due to lack of staff. They add that there is hope of a catering crew joining the train in Crew. I kid you not. But I have to get off this train in Birmingham. Is that before or after Crew? I really need to study a UK map at some point. And I really need a cup of tea because I had to get up very early and missed out on a cup at the station as I believed I’d get one on the train sharpish.
I’m quickly learning that just because an announcement says something, it doesn’t mean that announcement is true. Just after hearing there’s no crew until Crew, a drinks cart arrives with hot drinks and snacks. Even I know we’re nowhere near Crew. I’m too grateful for the tea to complain about the lie. Yikes! Chug the tea down because next stop is Birmingham if the announcement is to be believed.
I lug my suitcase down the steps and head to the platform for the train to Edinburgh. Another announcement: ‘All trains to Edinburgh have been cancelled. Please leave the station and head to the busses which will take you to your destination.’ Pandemonium breaks out. Passengers run up and down the platform yelling things like, ‘If the weather is too bad for the trains to get through, how will a bus be any better?!’ and, ‘Do they have any idea how long a bus ride it is to Leeds/York/Edinburgh from here?’ They raise good points. At this point I’m still trying to work out where Birmingham is and whether I could just walk back to Taunton from here.
Then a little voice whispers in my head: ‘Not every announcement is true.’ This is a test. Who will believe and who will double check what they heard? I’ve just finished reading a book called ‘How To Survive’ by John Hudson. He’s an elite survivalist and trains all the survival instructors for the UK and worldwide military. He says the Number One Rule is to never give up hope. So, will I placidly follow the herd to the busses, giving up all hope on my Train Travel Resolution after only one day?
No. I. Will. Not.
I veer off from the masses, battle crawling in a zigzag pattern to avoid detection. I hunt down another station employee with a walkie talkie. With all the confidence of one trained by elite military survivalists, I demand clarification on the Edinburgh train situation. Good job too. The walkie talkie tells us there is, in fact, a train for Edinburgh boarding now. Without pausing to wonder if a walkie talkie is more reliable than a Tannoy announcement, I leap into the lift, press buttons frantically – because everyone knows pressing buttons multiple times makes things work faster – leap out of said lift and hurtle onto the train just as the doors close. I drag my case through multiple carriages to find First Class and plonk myself down in a seat. This is not like The Orient Express at all!

A very welcome Prosecco

Once again, due to staff shortages, there is limited food service. A few hours later I manage to flag down a pasta dish as it flies down the aisle and, because life is short and uncertain in the world of train travel, I also grab a Prosecco. And a jolly good job I did because the train is held in Preston due to some obstacle potentially blocking the tracks ahead. The lady behind is telling her husband on the phone that they will certainly be bussing us from Preston to Edinburgh so he should go ahead and eat without her. I frantically search for Preston on a map of the UK. Is Preston in England or Scotland? It’s definitely a long way from Edinburgh. I gulp down the Prosecco in case it’s not allowed on the bus. But it turns out the lady on the phone knows nothing. The train begins to move the moment her husband puts the lasagna in the microwave and doesn’t stop again until Edinburgh. Tannoy announcements, walkie talkies, train apps, and ladies on phones who are ‘certain’ all seem to know abso-flippin-lutely nothing.
I finally stagger to my hotel, only moderately sure I was right to explore the country via train. Though I haven’t checked, I’m certain air travel must also have been impacted. Luckily, I have proceeded to have a truly wonderful time in Edinburgh. If you ever get the chance to have a Christmas afternoon tea at The Dome, take it!

Unfortunately, as I write this on December 27th at my hotel, I should have been on a train back to Taunton. Ha! Storm Gerrit laughs at my plans and wreaks havoc across the whole UK transportation system. After three hours smashed shoulder-to-shoulder at Waverley Train Station this morning with my fellow one million passengers, watching each successive train to Taunton get cancelled, I give up and return to see if there’s a room still available at the hotel I just checked out of. My survivalist training said to quit Plan A (aka Operation Return Home) while there was a chance there were hotel rooms still to be had. According to the receptionist, if I’d waited another fifteen minutes, there wouldn’t have been. Never giving up hope only goes so far in train travel. Knowing when to retreat is an important survival strategy.
So here I am. A train travel resolution survivalist. Still a long way from home. Still maintaining hope that my resolution will prove beneficial to my own personal travel growth and the planet’s future health. I have tea bags and chocolate biscuits in my hotel room, though I plan to ration them diligently. You never know how long you’re going to have to last in the Edinburgh jungle before rescue arrives.

Welcome to Edinburgh!

Happy New Year to you all. If you’re starting a New Year’s resolution, good luck. If you started one in December, I salute you. I wish you more success than I’ve had so far.