I was sad when I woke up on the last day of our stay, as Skye just had so much to see, and I would have liked to go on a few walking trips to where a car could not go, but Liz is not the hiking type, so I decided to come back at a later stage. But for now it was goodbye, as I had a plane to catch, and on the other side of the globe my kids were already very excited about me coming back at last!
Back at Strathyre it was just for sleeping one night and then on to the train station at Stirling from where the Great Western Flyer' would take me away from a world that I loved, and on to Kingscross in London. The new people had already moved in and was busy as bees learning the arts of running a pub under Joe's capable hand. He would stay for a few weeks until they were okay to go on on their own.
I got a beautiful set of laminated placemats with a collage of all the weird and wonderful people of Strathyre from the owners of the caravan park that made me cry, as it was such a nice idea.
But at last I was on my way, with a solemn oath that I would be back for the next summer.
My homeward journey was not without incident, as a matter of fact I was a bitty embarrased at one stage.
The train to London was as always very pleasant to me, and much better than taking one of the cheap flights, as then somebody had to take me to the airport, which was quite far, then I would still have to get a bus to Heathrow, and to me that was much more inconvenient than just getting onto the underground. So the trip to Kingscross went very smoothly, me having made a young friend, who, on noticing that I was reading a Terry Pratchet book, lost his lethargic, typical teenager mode, and started talking Terry Pratchet, while his mum, who had tried her best to get him to be interested in the view from the window, and the packed lunch that looked delicious, looked on in wonder!
The underground was busy at the time we got to Kingscross, but after struggling to get my VERY heavy rucksack that made my legs buckle onto my back, and pulling the just as heavy suitcase behind me, I made it to the ticket office, and then down into the belly of the earth. It was very hard to stay upright with the rucksack pulling me all over the place, and I was sure that every ligament and muscle in my body was ruined!
The train was overful, but I managed to squeeze myself into a tiny space, and could not believe it when two more people also squeezed in. I had nowhere to hang onto, and when the train pulled away, the bally rucksack pulled me backwards, and there I lay, caught by some man, unable to get upright, no matter how hard both the man and self tried, while the man next to me just did not notice. I had to then make peace with my mishap, and lay against the poor man until the passengers had thinned out, and oh happiness, at Hammersmith a lot got off, and a very nice Australian guy came to our rescue and pulled me upright.
The British are indeed a strange nation, as through all this, nobody showed by even lifting a brow, that they had noticed my discomfort, or tried to help, and just sat staring into space as if they were cut of from humanity the moment they got on the underground!