Abdn

My new backflow incense burner.  Hopefully, I’ll get a pic of it working properly later.

So, my journey home was an… experience.  I was running late to leave for the station, so I decided to get a taxi.  Got to the train station and discovered that I had left my phone at home.  I flew through the underpass, straight into the only taxi there and asked him to get me home and back as soon as possible.  The driver asked what I had forgotten, what time my train was and what train it was (so he knew which platform to drop me off at) and got me home and back in 10 minutes, still giving me plenty of time.

The train to Darlington was fine.  Then I went to get onto the train from Darlo to Aberdeen.  Only to discover that the carriage I had book my seat on was missing.  Completely.  I was told to take my seat in another carriage and it’d be fine, which it was.  Until the person who had reserved that seat from a different station got on board.  Plus the train was delayed, but by one minute short of the cut off for me to be able to claim a partial refund.  Mum and dads car is off the road, so you’d better believe I stopped off for a couple of pints before catching the bus.

Friday, I needed to go to pick up my Cove Rangers top.  Thankfully, I was able to get a bus right round from close to the house.  It was then that I discovered that, if you’re paying through contactless one bus company in Aberdeen cares not for actual fares.  Someone is getting ripped off and that day I suspect it was them.

Found my way to the Cove staduim, only to find the manager casually chilling in reception messing around on his phone.  Wouldn’t get that at Aberdeen or Middlesbrough, I can assure you.

Then I got the bus back into town and went looking to get pictures of Wullies.

No, no, not like that.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Oor Wullie is a Scottish cartoon character best known for sitting on a bucket.  In five Scottish cities, there are specially decorated statues of Wullie and so I was getting pics of them.  I also got some stuff I was needing.

Saturday was the NuArt walking tour.  NuArt is a festival of street art in the city, now on its third year.  The actual festival was months ago, but they’re still doing the tours.  Lover of street art as I am, I did the tour and was joined by my sister.  She wanted to do the tour and the fact it got her out of taking my nephew to a birthday party was a bonus.  It was interesting, the art is brilliant and the stories were varied.  There was other stuff happening in the city centre that day, so the poor guide was occasionally struggling to be heard above everything else.

Sunday was spending time with my nephew, which is always fun.

Monday I went to Hazlehead Park, which is near my parents house.  There were another couple of Wullies there, along with a wood carving of the Gruffalo and child and cairns about Robert the Bruce, with a wood carving of a spider.

Today was back to Boro.  I finally got the bus into town, then I got on the train (which this time had an extra carriage) and sat in First Class for the first time ever.  I may well splurge on that again.  loads of leg room and free food and drink the whole way.

My train was late getting into Darlo for the single best reason I’ve heard.  The train was stuck behind a freight train between Newcastle and Durham.

Then I got home and picked up the dragon.

Lack of pics in this entry?  Wait a couple of hours, I’m going to post an entry with a lot of pics.  And I do mean a lot.

Will