Traveling to Carslile

Missing a day out of order – traveling from Bath to Carlisle.
Our Taxi, train, train, train, rental car day was hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. The trains are wonderfully clean, quiet, efficient and fast – the only tricky part being negotiating from one to the other in the stations with luggage. The porters at the station are very helpful in directing us to the proper platform. The stations sell snack food, but the toilets at the larger stations are all pay 3O cents to get in, exact change. The seats on the train can be reserved in advance – little electronic message displays tell you for which leg of the journey the seat is reserved or if the seat is available for use by anyone. The seats with tables seem to be the desirable ones. Luggage goes behind the last row. When whole familys or a mom with lots of kids gets on, people help them with their luggage and often move to different seats to accommodate the kids. But you have to be quick getting on and off – it usually stops for just a minute or so – the signs advertising when the train is leaving the station countdown not only the minutes, but often even the seconds left. So if you catch the train, you can pretty much count on arriving on time. There are lots of bike racks, not so much parking for commuters and the local buses run to the train stations also. Our Rail Flexi-pass entitles the 4 of us to a day of travel on as many trains as we can fit in to get to our destination – for just one price. It is only available for purchase outside of the UK – so basically it is for tourists only –at quite a discount it turns out – about $80 per person per change of city for us on this trip – all of which are about a 3-4 hour journey on various trains with layovers.
All was well until we got to the Eurocar rental location (converted gas station). They had given our car away when we did not arrive at noon (when we had said 2 months earlier our arrival time) and although we had prepaid, they did not have any rental cars at 4:30pm, closing at 5pm. However, with little prodding from us, they decided that they would unofficially let us borrow the only car in the parking lot – a rental that had gone over the mileage limit and was already sold to a used car dealer in Scotland. Without actually putting it through on the computer, they hand wrote an old rental form and even though Marci kept trying to buy all available insurance (collision, theft, liability, deductible) they said it was all going to be lovely and not to worry about such things. The counter lady got her atlas out of her car (don’t generally have maps to give out) and sent us on our way. So we took a deep breath off we went! We knew we would be driving on the left, but didn’t count on a stick shift also on the left side, or a stick shift at all. Thank goodness for that green Ford Pinto in high school – because it all came back just one intersection stall later – the thrill of the rev, the grinding of jumping from 1st to 4th accidentally, the running over the left curb while swinging wildly into oncoming traffic turning right from the wrong side of the road… All I did was operate the vehicle, Amos navigated and deciphered signs, Lydia called out upon every turn and change of directions “get on the left side”, and Granny remained calm and refrained from talking about the scenery until we all got settled in and every moment wasn’t a bad amusement park ride full of thrills and disorienting danger. Thankfully, it doesn’t get dark here until after 10pm, so we made it to the B&B in daylight, with no mishaps.
The B&B is actually on a sheep farm – after being downtown for 2 cities, we thought it would be a relaxing change. The one lane bridge over the river is only a few years old, previously you had to ford the river, but only when it wasn’t running high. A very comfortable shabby chic abode only a few hundred years old, but with recently installed wi-fi (college daughter set it up for them) and owners of only 4 months in the process of upgrading things.
So we are here for 4 nights and for once have 2 rooms and free access to the living/breakfast room and barnyard animals to lull us to sleep. Should be grand fun.