Elaine landed at Heathrow very early on 8th July while I was on a train heading north to Glasgow to graduate from the BSc in Railway Operations that National Express Group had kindly paid for me to complete!
Once Elaine had experienced with the usual stress of dealing with Border Control (30 minutes apparently) she headed off to meet up with Reinette at Victoria Station, I know that she was looking forward to this as they had not seen each other for 4 months since Rei came back to the UK. The plan was for Elaine to stay overnight with Rei and James while I was in Glasgow and for me to head down the following day.
Glasgow was great, a few beers with my old colleague Nicko and his wife Tracy, a near two hour session of clapping and droning and a reception afterwards courtesy of the Institution of Railway Operators to toast our success. A particularly nice touch was the presence of a man wearing a skirt who was piping us out of the venue by strangling a cat!
Elaine didn't know it but Rei and I had hatched a plan! I was going to get the last train from Glasgow at 1840hrs to arrive back at my house in Birmingham by about 2330hrs. Then I was going to jump in my car and drive to London to avoid having to sit in the traffic the following morning and to give Elaine a big surprise!
Amazingly everything went to plan, despite nearly missing my connecting train at Carlisle, and at just after two o'clock in the morning Rei let me in and I went upstairs to Elaine's room. I was using my mobile phone to provide some light but this probably scared Elaine even more as she woke with a scream! Surprise! It was great to see her again and even though we had only been apart for two weeks I'd really missed her.
I was shattered after being awake for 20 hours and travelling 1200kms by train and car and fell asleep within 30 seconds!
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