Car Shuffle and Home

We arrived in the marina last night so no cruising today, but we did still have the car to retrieve from Alvechurch. Today was one of several train driver strike days but schedules were supposed to be published by yesterday - with some indicated that way. Mike found that the last trip of the morning using the 3 train route (in reverse) that he used when unexpectedly collecting the car from the marina just after the slippage at Shortwood was still due to depart just after 10 am. He booked etickets. (Droitwich->Bromsgrove->Barnt Green ->Alvechurch in 45 minutes) and a taxi from the marina to the station at 9.30.

We awoke to find a very different day, weather-wise, from the previous two days. There was a significant fog/mist with freezing temperatures. Just the conditions for chilling the lungs when doing anything energetic outside. At least we had made the right call on days to come down all those locks.

The taxi arrived on time but when Mike was dropped at the station he immediately saw that his train was CANCELLED! The schedule on the display was sparse and the next after the 10:03 only showed the destination, not the route. The further complication was that Three, the provider for Mike's phone, still did not have any data service - the outage had started some time yesterday, Fortunately Christine's is on a different network so we could book the tickets. The ticket office at the station was not manned this morning, either! Luckily a lady sitting next to Mike on the platform thought to look up his route and showed that the recommended option was to take the next train (actually a little earlier) into Birmingham Moor Street, walk to New Street and thence down to Alvechurch, 

Of course, all trains today were extremely busy with limited standing room at times. As the phone network still had data outage, Mike was not able to display the QR code of his ticket but the train manager accepted the email. 

This train was actually going to Stratford-on-Avon, on a long loop through Kidderminster, around Birmingham and  then southwards. Just before we arrived at Smethwick Galton Bridge there was an announcement that suggested passengers for New Street could change here. A lot did! And there was a train ready and waiting at platform 4 on the lower level.

At last this meant not having to do the walk from Moor Street to New Street (which always seems to take longer than the five minutes officially allowed) and so there was time to pick up a warming cup of coffee.

The train to Alvechurch, the stop before the end of the line at Redditch, was on time and arrived as scheduled, just an hour later than the original plan. It could have been a lot worse.

Mike then drove back to the marina - the motorway was not busy, luckily as by the M5 the fog was thickening and the overhead signs warned drivers to slow down. Christine, meanwhile, had done a good job in making sure that what we needed to load into the car was ready for immediate collection. This was soon transferred before lunch. Then time to empty the last few drops of water in the tank (we had not taken on a full tank to avoid wasting more than we needed), empty the elsan and go through our pre-departure checklist.

We were away just a few minutes after 2, which is what we had hoped so that we could reach home whilst there was still daylight - sunset was just after 4. Again, traffic was moderate and not too much fog until we were about two miles from home. The fog bank, with a sharp 'edge' to it , was rather impressive.

When we left home on  Wednesday we were still expecting not to be back until Sunday with at least one day of rain  forecast. Since we had set the heating to Holiday and to come back on on Sunday, the house was really, really cold and it warmed up very slowly. We were very glad that our menu plan was to collect fish 'n chips from a local chippie - and boy, was it good!

We will need to return to the boat for some maintenance before the start of next season's cruising but w do not yet have a plan - just a growing list of things to attend to! The next fixed point on the agenda will be the boat painting, starting at the end of May 2024.