To the Beach Against the Odds

  
It turned out eventually to be another sparkling autumn day but the sparkle was a little missing as I wound my way down to the waves. In fact it was half dark as I passed the Tron Church just as it was chiming 7am. The Lothian Bus timetable stated there was a #26 bus from the east end of Princes Street at 7:14am. The first #26 arrived at 7:29am and I had been waiting since 7:08am. Either the 7:14am was too early or absent altogether. 

Here follows a rant.
The new style arrival notice boards at the stops are very confusing. Once the scheduled bus is listed as arriving in 3 minutes, it subsequently disappears off the board so that anyone arriving with say 2 minutes to spare only sees the arrival time of the next bus, and perhaps starts walking only to be overtaken by the very bus they wanted. 
Added to that malfunction,  today the arrival board at the bus stop for the #26 had a notice in big print stating that the stop was not in use and to make for the next stop in Waterloo place. The trouble was that the bus drivers had not been told about this so were still stopping and picking up and had you followed the advice on the board and gone to the next bus stop , the bus would have sailed right past you as it is not a regular stop for the #26. It had happened to the guy in front of me and so he had returned to the ‘closed’ stop. We waited and the bus duly picked us and others up despite the notice. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
Rant over.

Despite the frustrations of the travelling it was lovely to get into the sea again after the storms of last week. Groyne 4 is tilting even more and it can’t be long before the middle section falls on to the sand. Where will I hang my coat then?