Great review Sean, shame it was more disastrous than some of my outings have been.
Whilst I'm here, I'll give just a few notes from my trip to Edinburgh yesterday.
Managed to deal with all the train stuff alright, such as finding my reserved seat (although I sat somewhere else on the way back), one thing that annoyed me on the journey to Edinburgh was the two oldies who got on in at Berwick who couldn't seem to find their reserved seats and despite the fact we were in the quiet coach they kept fairly loudly talking about the food they brought on the train with them. Just outside Dunbar? I went to the toilet and when I came back I found that the old woman had put her coat on my seat, honestly!
Can't really remember much of the bus stuff I rode in Edinburgh and not sure what I made of them although they all seemed alright.
So, Lothian Open Doors then, oh dear this was my worst nightmare, it wasn't so much the fact there was too many people, it was more the fact that it seemed like everyone even when you have an expensive DSLR camera round your neck clearly trying to take a photo of a bus would walk in front of you or stand in front of a bus for 10 minutes, in the end we had to give up the photo taking as it seemed like an impossibility and this was probably the best idea considering how angry I got, seriously I was in a pretty bad mood about this and some of you who were there at the time will now know how annoyed I actually get. Yeah it was pretty bad, sorry to you for seeing me in that state.
Still not in the best of moods headed back to Princess Street on an Enviro 400, I was sat on the fold down seat in the wheelchair Bay and part way through the journey some guy came down from upstairs and decided to stand just in front of me for the remainder of the journey so because of the height of the seat with me browsing the internet on my phone and the height of the person standing, my face was pretty much right in his crotch, worst lap dance ever!
For some of the time after this probably as a result of my outburst, I began to feel slightly light headed but began to feel alright after a few minutes photo taking by the bus station. Got a few more photos before heading for the train home (via McDonald's).
Arrived back in Darlington where I got to see a Northern Rail Class 142 leaving for Bishop Auckland, Damn, I missed it! So because the 5 didn't leave Darlington Town Centre until 19:05 I hung around the station for a bit, was a bit confused why some people were stood on the platform outside the station, which I later discovered was because of people seeing Tornado pass through, gutted I didn't realise this, would have been a good photo for my Photostream.
On the 5 home, was quiet journey (well as quiet as you can get on a shaking 1426) until Pease Way Doctors Surgery when Billy from across the road and his friend got on the bus, despite claiming he doesn't drink in the past, Billy (and his friend) were pretty tipsy. Annoyingly everytime I get on the 5/5A on a Saturday or if I've jumped off the 21 from Sunderland/Peterlee I always seem to run into these two.
Thanks for reading this review, mixed day then, other than my long snapping session of people at the Lothian event I actually enjoyed my trip up to Edinburgh and may do it again next year, although I will take Dan's advice on-board about going to the Lothian event towards the time it should end and will stay in Edinburgh longer so I can fit some more stuff in as we were a bit pushed for time. The first lot of photos should probably appear on my Flickr sometime today and more photos will probably appear over the next week.
Bus Related Outings and Reviews