Eastern Lowlands; Monday, 08 May, 2006

00:30 I have decided that First ScotRail has a new corporate theme, “Oops we did it again.” I’ve been sitting in the sleeper lounge for nearly 4 hours. 2 hours ago, they announced, “due to over running engineering works on the West Coast main line the sleeper had been cancelled.”

Despite repeated assurances that coaches were on their way to take people down to London, or the carriages being made ready to sleep in Edinburgh overnight and catch the train down in the morning, nothing has appeared.

01:00 and I have just got into a hotel room for a couple of hours sleep. I’m staying in a four star hotel overlooking Princes street, the Scott monument and the castle, but I don’t really care because I have to get up in 4 hours to get the train back down to London.

05:30 With the sun starting to break through the clouds I’m standing on Waverley station 300+ miles north of where I should be at this point in time, about to catch the first train of the morning down to London, a disappointing and tiring end to what should have been a relaxing short break!

10:40 And just to top it off the engineering works on the East Coast main line overnight overran so the train was 40 minutes late into Kings Cross!