Wednesday 28 November 2012

Great Lunchon Ambitions

It's not often I do something wildly spontaneous. Even though I like to think I'm a hip(ish), free and easy, laid back 20-something, the honest truth is that I'm actually quite an organised individual. I like to know plans in advance, I enjoy looking ahead and making plans. Leafing though my diary at the end of the day to see what exciting, planned, events are penned in for the following week is very satisfying.

Honestly, I don't feel ashamed about this and actually enjoy it, but every now and then I surprise myself by doing something a bit out of the blue. Usually it turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun and reminds me that, actually, I am still in my twenties despite my enjoyment of listening to Classic FM and turning in for an early night.

Sometimes it's nice to say, "Fuck it. Lets do that!"

This week included one of those impulsive moments when the boyfriend and I decided to go to Edinburgh. Just for lunch.

Arranging to meet at Kings Cross station at 8:30am (the only actual plan we made all day), we then looked at the departure board to see where we could head. York was an option, neither of us had been there for years and there would be lots of historical, parent-y type attractions we could see. Unfortunately, after a quick look on the old smart phone, it was set to rain there all day and parts had been hit by flooding.

Looking at each other, we thought, well if it's north we're headed where's the most north we can go from here? Scotland. Yes! Hell, lets do it! We should have just enough time to have lunch before turning around and making it back to London at a decent time. And while we're at it, lets travel first class too. Well, if you're going to be on a train for four and a half hours, you may as well do it in comfort.

Today was set to be full of life-firsts for me. I'd never been to Edinburgh - or Scotland for that fact - , I'd never seen the North Sea, which you get to do on this journey, as well as The Angel Of The North when you pass through Newcastle. I'd never had a complimentary hot meal on a train before, which you get when travelling first class on a train all that way, as well as free alcohol after 11am (don't worry, I behaved). How splendid all of this was turning out to be.

As the journey progressed it became very apparent that it was set to be wet and rainy throughout the UK. Watching the news the day before, we were aware that much of the Midlands and Northern part of the UK were under water and flood warnings were in place. Never did we imagine quite how bad it would be though!

Passing through the British countryside we saw the extent of the flooding. Whole series of fields were totally submerged under water and the rain still fell as rivers continued to swell and burst their banks. It was bad, but so exciting! I've never seen a spectacle quite like it. Even part of the train track started to flood, meaning we had to slow right down to get through it causing our train to be 20 minutes late - it was to be a whole lot worse on the way home, but I'll get to that later.

Chugging our way through Northern England and into Scotland, it really was a beautiful journey. Even though I've lived in the UK for 26 years, I don't think I've ever seen so much of the country as on that journey, as I said before there were a lot of landmarks we passed that until then had been nothing more than images on the TV. I was excited, possibly because of the amount of free coffee I'd consumed, but also because this day of chance and random decision making was turning out to be quite the adventure!

Pulling into Edinburgh, I don't think I've ever arrived in a city with such instant impact. There's a fucking cliff, that looks like a small mountain, with a chuffing castle on top of it, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!! I know this is common knowledge, that Edinburgh Castle is there, but fuck me, it's damn impressive. I just love how they've built a city around a cliff. With a castle. That's hardcore. I challenge you to suggest an English city that has quite the same natural landscape impact as that. I was impressed.

I was also impressed that we'd travelled through rain all the way to Scotland, but there wasn't a drop of drizzle in Edinburgh. The streets were bone dry, which made my need for wearing wellies quite redundant, which I'd donned because England was wet. That should hopefully silence those that say, "It always rains in Scotland." Well on this day, it was raining everywhere but. What a stroke of luck.

There had been rumblings on the train that the weather was getting worse around Darlington and York and that trains were being cancelled and delayed up to an hour and half due to flooding. We were the last ride to make it through more or less on time. Uh oh. This could be a very short visit indeed.

Checking in with the information desk, they advised us to get on the next train asap (but we'd only just arrived) lest we get stuck in bonny Scotland. Taking note of the return train times, the chap and I agreed we'd go for lunch then make our journey back to be on the safe side.

There's not much I can say about our actual time in Edinburgh. It was so brief.

We took a quick stroll around the castle and it's gardens and headed to a pub called The Red Squirrel for lunch. They did amazing burgers. Finishing up, paying the bill, we headed back at a brisk pace to the station. There was just enough time to send a postcard to the parents to gloat about my extravagant day trip.

In total I think we spent about an hour and a half in Edinburgh. Literally, we went for lunch. All the way to Scotland for a burger. Now that's impulsive!

Making it onto the 4pm train, we then spent eight hours crawling our way back to Kings Cross. Sadly it was dark by that time, so I couldn't see the extent of the flooding after a whole day's rain south of the Scottish boarder. Still, it was all very, very exciting not knowing if we were going to make it, slowly edging through flooded bits of track, seeing train managers hurrying through on their phones trying to sort it out and get us through the worst effected areas.

Arriving in London at midnight, we were grateful to have made it back and even though it was a long journey, it was at least a comfortable one *cough*First Class*cough*. Yes, I am feeling smug.

Throwing the diary schedule out of the window proved to provide me with one of the most exciting days of adventure I've experienced in ages. It's too easy to become bogged down with work, thinking about budgeting for trips like this, circling around the same little area of city or town that you live in. I'm not saying it's simple to go out and do things like this all that often, but fuck it, heading off on a last minute adventure now and then is essential to remind you that there's more out there and it is possible to escape the daily grind.

I was about to type, 'I'm already looking forward to the next one,' but then I suppose that totally defeats the point...