Thursday 7 June 2012

Showers on the Fife Circle

If you'd asked me a week ago where I would be now, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that I'd been in Scotland since Sunday.

Step Mum has had the most unorthodox of bank holiday weekends - by not having any time off work! Indeed, she has been working long days and late nights throughout.

When you were a baby, it was me who once brought you and Mummy with me to Glasgow for a night - I remember going to Baby Gap in Buchanan Galleries to buy your dedication outfit. Now, it's Step Mum, as the earner in our household, who is bringing me to Scotland, owing to her employer's late shout calling in her weekend.

As it happens, the job's not finished yet, so having flown up on Sunday night (less said about the two hour delay arriving to find they'd booked the wrong hotel  and McDonalds for tea, the better!) we are still here! This has caused a few logistical issues, but it's given me the opportunity to have a few days away from London - and neither of us have had to cook for a week!

Today, I am trying to 'clear' Scotland. I first came up here about ten years ago and by the end of today, connections permitting, I will have travelled on every piece of railway in Scotland over which scheduled passenger trains run. I've done a few bits which are freight-only, too, but those days are over now, probably for good.



I've been to the Bo'ness and Kinneil railway, Ardrossan Harbour, Largs, Alloa, and last night I dropped in to Inverkeithing and found that yes, you can still ride behind a 'Skip' on the Fife circle, 1708 off Edinburgh. I'm going back for the whole run this evening. It reminds me of a time when I used to do a lot of trips behind Class 67s, and it reminds me of you.

You of course have done a fair bit of mileage up here, too. You've been to Kyle of Lochalsh, and you've been over the stretch of line I'm on now, between Linlithgow and Polmont, albeit asleep at the time!

I sent you a postcard yesterday. It is as much as I can do directly. We are waiting for the next court date, and Mummy's solicitors, whilst sending me weekly letters with some new threat or other, are ignoring my repeated requests for them to confirm when the court order, some 18 months old now, is going to be adhered to.

Their only response? They tell me that Mummy isn't breaking the order at all. I am struggling to find a definition of the word 'shall' which fits the meaning they are ascribing to it!

You're not seeing me though, are you. That's the reality. So the words are of little consequence and the pieces of paper of no meaning.

Love from Daddy


PS: I've not been able to post what I wrote earlier yet. I'm now on the 'Skip' job now, coming round the Fife circle curve at Thornton Junction. 67011 in charge again and it's slinging it down, so I'm in the saloon!

Paisley Canal earlier this afternoon was my final scheduled passenger mileage in Scotland.

I wonder when you will next come up here?

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