This blog post is about the first of these trips, on Saturday 31st January. It was a day trip from London; it was not inexpensive. Yes, it involved a steam train. An excursion from London to Carlisle (very top of Northwest England - in fact only 16km from the Scottish border) which would travel along the Settle-Carlisle railway line which is remarked to be one of the most scenic in the UK. There's a whole heap of trips along this line throughout the year - 2015 is a boom year comparatively with a large number of extra trips originating from London (usually very few start from London). I could have waited before doing this trip, but a number of things came into play - namely the steam train portion was being pulled by a type of engine which is a favourite; it had snowed around a lot of England and Scotland during the week, and there was a good chance the trip would see snow-covered English countryside and that was something I wanted to see; by doing the 31st trip I could claim to have kept to the fortnightly trip aim so far for January; and it seemed fitting to do a steam train trip on Grandad's birthday, since I couldn't be in NZ to celebrate it with him. Add to that I wanted to do something to treat myself for having got my job and flat, so on Wednesday I booked a seat on the train for Saturday (Standard Class, that was cheapest - I was interested to compare it to First Class which I had travelled to Lincoln in as well as being frugal). I should also point out that an original idea was to do this trip, get off at Nuneaton on the way back, get to and stay the night at Leicester and visit the Grand Central Railway's winter steam train gala on the Sunday - but that would have cost almost twice as much, so I opted to just do the trip.
So that was my Saturday - Sunday has been a lot more relaxed, just finding the large supermarket nearby and stocking up on supplies as well as attending to a few chores. The supermarket is huge, so full of choice - and it even has a clothing section, book/DVD section and electronic equipment store inside it! In the same building is a large Marks & Spencers with more food and lots of clothes and manchester as well so pretty handy. Its next to a little river where people were fishing (did not look like a fishing river to me) and there's a water wheel by a market (which wasn't a very exciting one when I visited) so I'm in a neat wee area all round really. No idea what I might get up to next, or when - so stay tuned!