Brightened up

See yesterday's blip for the start of this story.  

Now edited to add the sequel.

I woke stupidly early, and aching - I'd clearly been very tense all night.  I read for a while.

At 0800 prompt, we rang Aldi customer services, who were very helpful, contacted the Stewarton store, and ascertained that the phone had been found!

We were booked on the 1130 ferry, but clearly were not going to be able to retrieve the phone and still catch it.  Fortunately I'd opted to pay a small supplement for a flexible booking, so we could change it.  Less fortunately, the 1530 sailing was fully booked, so we had to settle for the 1930 boat.

Anyway, we drove back to Stewarton and retrieved the phone.  We then went in to Ayr to charge the car, once again finding that the facilities for the driver were less than wonderful - a Greggs provided some very bitter coffee.

After that we had lots of time.  It would have been good, in better weather, to explore the area a little, but not much fun in the fairly persistent rain.  So we decided to find somewhere for lunch.  We drove back towards Cairnryan, and spotted Souter's Inn, where we had a lovely meal.

We arrived in Cairnryan shortly after the departure of the 1530 ferry.  By this time the weather was starting to improve.  We spent a bit of time rearranging the contents of the car, as we had rather more alcohol on board than was strictly legal, and some plants which also cannot be imported into the EU from post-Brexit Britain.

Photo taken from the waiting area - bit of blue sky.

We had an simple journey across to Belfast, then a long but largely uneventful drive down to our home - we were in bed by 0300.