Carlisle

I've been on the move today but not quite in the intended direction.

Late yesterday afternoon we had a message from CalMac Ferries advising that all sailings to Brodick were cancelled for today. This meant also cancelling our lovely accommodation for the third time. This was an already twice postponed trip so we'd been looking forward to third time lucky.

Then L had a message from her support team to say that the allocated worker, for perfectly understandable reasons, was unable to go with her to Solihull today for a Special Olympics meeting tomorrow. With unexpected free time I volunteered to go. Off we set this morning to Edinburgh and aboard the 'new' Avanti West Coast service to Birmingham. At Carlisle there was information that all the overhead lines were down between Lancaster and Preston. There were no trains going south nor north. I like Carlisle a lot having done a three year stint as an External Examiner at the University of Cumbria but I didn't want to be hanging around the town today or getting a bus to Birmingham. When we heard that a train which had arrived into Carlisle was turning tail for Glasgow (express) we were on it like a shot. Our tickets have been endorsed and we're just about to cross the Solway back to Scotland.

The blip isn't the gorgeous west coast scenery I'd hoped for but it represents the day so far!