Lake District – Getting There

Setting the scene for a series of posts about a short holiday I am enjoying in Ambleside by describing the journey there.

Welcome to what will be the first of a series of posts about a short holiday I am taking in the Lake District. My parents and I are staying in a small cottage above the town of Ambleside (for fans of Rebecca Tope think “The Ambleside Alibi”). This post sets the scene by describing my journey from King’s Lynn to Ambleside.

KINGS LYNN TO ELY

I left my bungalow, situated just north of King’s Lynn, at 9:00 yesterday morning as I had planned to do. This meant that I got to the train station with time to spare before my train, the 09:42 to Cambridge (something must have been happening south of Cambridge as the service usually runs through to London). The train set off exactly when it was supposed to and chugged into Ely at 10:15AM.

ELY TO MANCHESTER PICCADILLY

The second and longest section of my train odyssey was part of a long cross country route (the full route is Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street). The train on this route consists of two carriages and there are no reserved seats. Fortunately, although it was pretty full at times it was never seriously close to ‘sardine can on wheels’ territory. I had some familiarity with the route as far as Sheffield, but beyond Sheffield was all new to me.

MANCHESTER PICCADILLY TO PRESTON

The third leg of the journey took me into the heart of Lancashire, the the county town of Preston. This route had some features of interest, and for the third time out of three on the day it ran according to schedule. Given that the final leg of my rail journey was in the incapable hands of Avanti I did not expect to make it four out of four.

PRESTON TO OXENHOLME THE LAKE DISTRICT

The final section of my rail journey took me into the heart of the Lake District. I should have got into Oxenholme at 16:09, but the train for this last section was running 20 minutes late (which probably counts as punctual by Avanti’s unique standards). It was scenic, but I could not capture any of it with my camera because the “window” seat that I had reserved turned out to give me access to about 10% of said window, so I could see things, but not focus the camera on them. I got pictures from most of the rest of the route.

THE REST OF THE JOURNEY

After a minor confusion at Oxenholme, where my parents were collecting me in their car, having made their own way up from Cornwall, we found our way to the location given for our cottage, but the cottage was so well concealed that it took several attempts to actually locate it. There then turned out to be a few other problems with it – my parents bedroom contains a nasty hazard in that the bedroom door leads straight on to the staircase. I will go into more detail about Ambleside in my next post.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Channel Islands 1: King’s Lynn to Guernsey

Beginning my account of a family holiday in Guernsey and Alderney with an account of getting to Guernsey.

I am writing this post in a guest house at St Peter Port on the island of Guernsey. I am on a family holiday the centrepiece of which is a few days in Fort Clonque on the island of Alderney. We have time on Guernsey either side of that due to the fact the only ferries we could book were one going out of Portsmouth yesterday morning and one returning to Poole a week today. Just for the record these ferries are run by Condor, which is not part of the Pathetic & Obnoxious Group (P&O for short) who are currently treating their employees so atrociously.

KING’S LYNN TO PORTSMOUTH

Owing to the amount of stuff she and my nephew were taking my sister drove from King’s Lynn to Portsmouth, then took her car to Poole ready for the return journey before getting a train back to Portsmouth. I travelled by train (I had intended to do the same for the return journey from Poole before change in ferry times nixed that idea, so I will be a passenger in her car for the return journey). I got the 13:44 from Lynn to London which ran to time, giving me just under an hour to get from King’s Cross to Waterloo for the train to Poole, far more time than needed for that journey. I elected to take the Victoria line to Oxford Circus and then the Bakerloo line to Waterloo, deciding that although changing to the Jubilee at Green Park was quicker in terms of time spent on trains that difference would be more than accounted for by the difference between the cross-platform hop at Oxford Circus and the long interchange at Green Park, especially given the weight of my bags.

I arrived at Waterloo half an hour before my train to Portsmouth was due to depart, and had to wait for the platform to be confirmed. The train arrived in Portsmouth on time, and I made my way to the Travelodge, about three minutes walk from Portsmouth and Southsea station, where my sister my nephew and I were booked into a three bed room for the night.

PORTSMOUTH TO GUERNSEY

Originally our ferry was supposed to set out at 9AM, which would have meant being at the terminal by 8AM (Guernsey is a ‘crown dependency’, not part of Britain, so this is officially an international journey), but a delay meant that check was not until 9:30AM. Once we got underway it was smooth sailing – there were a few small waves in evidence in the open sea but it was never remotely rough.

We arrived into St Peter Port just after 5PM, and were established at our guest house an hour later.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Scotland 2021: Homeward Bound

The account of my homeward journey from my Scottish holiday.

This post concludes my coverage of my recent Scottish holiday (28th May to 5th June) by looking at the journey home.

A TRICKY START

I woke early on the morning of Saturday June 5th, and it was just as well that I did so. A check of my emails revealed on overnight message from thetrainline.com telling that the service I was due to be leaving Wick on at 8:02AM had been cancelled. Fortunately I was able to locate a bus service leaving Wick at 6:57 and arriving into Inverness at 9:58 giving me plenty of time to get back on track from there. Thus rather than £100s and almost certainly an overnight stay somewhere on the way home I was able to get round the problem for £22 and some seriously shredded nerves. It also meant missing breakfast which I had intended to be the main meal of the day for me as I expected opportunities to eat while travelling to be limited. I currently have a compensation claim with Scotrail awaiting resolution. They initially insisted that I destroy the ticket even though it was only ever valid for travel on June 5th and then claimed not to have received my image of the destroyed ticket – I uploaded it again today and tweeted their social media team as well.

WICK TO INVERNESS

The bus was ready precisely when it was supposed to be, and the journey to Inverness was accomplished with little difficulty. Getting from the bus station to the train station was slightly tricky – I had seen a sign pointing to the train station on the way in and aimed for that but it was only signing the station car park, which is actually a few minutes walk from the station itself. Once I had got into the station I discovered that there was a train to Edinburgh departing at 10:46, getting me comfortably back on track – indeed slightly ahead of schedule.

INVERNESS TO EDINBURGH

The train from Inverness to Edinburgh ran exactly according to schedule. The route is a scenic one. I had three hours at Edinburgh Waverley before my next train (on which I had a reserved seat) to Grantham was due to depart. This gave me an opportunity to consume some refreshments (and as it turned out was the last such I would have, not greatly to my surprise).

EDINBURGH TO HOME

The train to Grantham (terminating there – there were various problems afflicting the network) ran smoothly. At Grantham I had to board a replacement bus service from there to Peterborough, which arrived just a few minutes before the train for Ely was departing. At Ely I had one final change to the train to King’s Lynn, which fortunately went without incident. At 11:25PM this last train arrived at King’s Lynn. Then it just remained for me to walk home. Though there were a few nervy moments this last section of the journey from Edinburgh to my home in Norfolk went precisely as the itinerary had stated.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have photographs covering Wick to Edinburgh…

Scotland 2021: Getting There

An account of a journey to Scotland that almost went off the rails before it had really started.

Welcome to this first post in a series I shall be putting up about the holiday I am currently enjoying in Scotland with my parents. I am up here for a week which includes my birthday (the day itself is tomorrow, and it is my 46th). We are staying just outside John O’Groats. This post tells the story of my journey up here to set the scene.

PLANNING

The nearest the railway gets to to John O’Groats are the two northern outposts of Wick and Thurso, and these days the end of that line runs as follows: Georgemas Junction, Thurso, Georgemas Junction, Wick, so it made sense to arrange to travel to Thurso and from Wick. I booked from London to Thurso to incorporate an overnight journey, and then later from Wick to King’s Lynn. Thus I had to travel from King’s Lynn to London to connect with the overnight train from Euston. My plan was to get the 17:40 from King’s Lynn and have almost two hours in which to progress along the Euston Road from King’s Cross and on to the train (going onto the underground to travel one stop is in this case literally worse than useless – the interchanges between overground and underground at King’s Cross and vice versa at Euston are both lengthy. Probably the least bad way to do it by public transport would be to use the Circle/Hammersmith & City/ Metropolitan to Euston Square and cross Euston Road at surface level. However it is a fairly short walk along the Euston Road and that method is undoubtedly best…

BEST LAID PLANS O’ MICE AND MEN GANG AFT AGLEY

I boarded the 17:40 from Lynn to London without issue, but then the problems hit. First our departure was delayed because of power problems in the Finsbury Park area, then when we were finally cleared to depart our driver was instructed to run as a shuttle between Lynn and Cambridge, and those of us needing to get to London had to change to a Greater Anglia train. It was soon obvious from the stated timings of this service that staying on to Liverpool Street, from whence I would have to travel to Euston Square was a non-starter, so the only hope of avoiding a long delay, the cost of a night at the Holiday Inn on Euston Road and the cost a new single to Thurso the following day was to change at the last stop before Liverpool Street, Tottenham Hale, and get the Victoria line to Euston. Fortunately the problems between Lynn and London had used up my allocation of misfortune and I made it to my seat on the overnight train. Although this train was fractionally late into Inverness I still had over an hour and a half there before the final public transport leg of my journey to Thurso began. This, the sole purely Scottish leg of the journey, went absolutely smoothly and the train arrived in Thurso precisely when it was supposed to.

SOLUTION TO A TEASER

In my last post I included a teaser from brilliant.org and a little addition of my own:

A small additional question: can you identify the four mathematicians after whom Carl, Leonhard, Emmy and Sophie are named (answers to both parts of this question in my next post).

Here is Chew-Seong Cheong’s published solution to the main problem:

As for my little addition: Carl is quite clearly from Carl Friedrich Gauss, Leonhard is equally obviously a tribute to Leonhard Euler, Emmy is Emmy Noether, a great German mathematician of the early 20th century and Sophie is Sophie Germain, who has a class of prime numbers named after her. Sophie Germain primes are those primes where if you multiply them by two and add one you also get a prime number.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These photos comprise one taken en route to King’s Lynn station, two taken on the Victoria line train between Tottenham Hale and Euston, a number taken between Stirling and Inverness on the overnight train, a number from the Inverness to Thurso train and a couple taken at the house where we are staying:

Cornish Winter Break 16: Falmouth – Getting There and Setting the Scene

The first of several posts in my Cornish Winter Break series relating to Falmouth.

INTRODUCTION

I continue my series about my Cornish Winter Break. Today’s is the first of what will be quite a few posts dealing with the last trip that I made as part of that holiday. This trip was unique in two ways among those I made during this holiday:

It was my idea
It featured a train journey

GETTING THERE

My mother and I got on the train at St Germans at 10:36, changed at Truro for the shuttle service to Falmouth Docks, and arrived at Falmouth just after 12:00. Falmouth was a planned port, first built in the late 16th century to provide an extra starting point for the export of china (it was intended to augment the existing port of Fowey, not challenge it – the person who planned it was actually a native of Fowey). It is a magnificent setting (my camera battery ran out before the end of the trip, but not before I had taken some fine pictures). After a pause to orient ourselves we headed for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, which will get several posts of its own. The museum occupied as for quite some time, and then we had a brief look at the rest of the town, but I was getting tired by then, and we headed back not very long after finishing at the museum. I intend to revisit both the town and the museum.

PHOTOGRAPHS

P1300529 (2) — There are a number of these old train carriages in the grounds of St Germans – I am considering staying in one of them when I am in Cornwall in August.

P1300607 (2) — A superb mosaic at Falmouth Docks

Cornwall for Christmas

An account of journey from King’s Lynn to Cornwall for the festive period.

INTRODUCTION

After a very quiet day yesterday, following a day of travelling the day before I am settled at my parents place in Cornwall, where I shall be spending Christmas and the New Year. This post details the journey down, before ending with some photographs.

KINGS LYNN TO CORNWALL

On Friday night it was the sensory friendly Panto performance at the Corn Exchange, King’s Lynn, which was excellent fun. On Saturday morning, with my packing accomplished I got the 9:20AM bus from just opposite my bungalow to the town centre (my baggage was heavy, so walking would have been very tough), arriving in good time to board the 10:13 train to London. Almost precisely two hours later I arrived at King’s Cross, with 45 minutes to get from there to my pre-booked seat from Paddington to Plymouth. The Hammersmith & City line (the district/circle line station is Paddington in name only) played ball for once, and I was at Paddington in good time. There was a warning that all was not necessarily well on the GWR when the platform information for my train did not come up on the departures screen until 10 minutes before it was due to leave. Ensconced in my seat I poured a cup of coffee from my cheapo travelling flask (it proved up the job) and waited for departure…and waited some more, until an announcement came through that our driver had been delayed on an inbound service and that we would be at least 20 minutes late getting underway. At this point I phoned my mother because even with no further delays that was likely to prove enough to prevent me making my connection at Plymouth for an onward journey to St Germans. I therefore arranged to be collected from Plymouth instead. In the event, it was fully 40 minutes after our scheduled departure time that the train finally got moving. We lost no further time on the journey, although the last section between Totnes and Plymouth felt like it was taking a long time. It would have been about eight and a half hours after I had left my bungalow in North Lynn that I finally got to my parents place.

CORNWALL

A combination of tiredness from the previous day’s travelling and some fierce Cornish weather ruled out doing anything much yesterday. However today we will be going to Looe. In the bad old days of rotten boroughs the two villages of East Looe and West Looe were both recognized as parliamentary constituencies, and each returned two MPs. These days it is well known as a seaside resort.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…