Nightcap

Long day travelling back north today. Our through train to Kirkcaldy was going to take two hours longer than normal... and stop in Edinburgh. There seemed to be no guards on the train - so no way to find out if the local trains to Kirkcaldy were running. There was a Scotrail employee (I think) on the table next to us - having a long involved phone conversation with a colleague about how "pathetic" it was that they had had no service on some days. By then I'd managed to wrestle the IPod Touch from Conor and checked on line (in the scant 15 minutes free connection you are now allowed on the train wifi - it's getting more Ryanair by the minute) that the trains were sort of running.

Long long long cold wait at Edinburgh, then home on the slow train. The taxi got stuck in the car park at the station but finally we were delivered home. To the ice house.

Our house is lovely - but it takes a very long time to heat up. Once it is warm, it stays warm with very little effort thanks to lovely thick walls - but it takes a couple of days to get it there. So the kids were tucked up with hot water bottles, extra radiators in their rooms, silk sleeping bag liners and two very thick duvets each. And hats.

This is my headgear for the night. And if I look a bit sad and poorly in this, that's because I was both. One of our friends has had a terrible stomach bug for most of the week. Which I may have caught. Things were looking very bad first thing this morning, but thankfully matters improved a little. A train is a bad place to have a tummy bug.