And you’re right. I haven’t been here a year yet, BUT as of today, I have officially spent 12 full months in the UK during my assorted visits.

So here’s the break-down of my “first visits”:
October 17 – October 31: 2008
November: 2008
December: 2008
January: 2009
February: 2009
March 1-24: 2009
March 25-31: 1997
April 1-4: 1997
April 4-6: 2009
April 7-30: 2010
May: 2010
June: 2010
July: 2010
August: 2010
September 1-15: 2010
September 16-30: 2009
October 1-16: 2010

And I swear, I haven’t forgotten about everything I need to blog. I just seem to have developed a social life and since we got back from Austria, I feel like I’ve been constantly on the go! Updates soon!!

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users can comment directly on Facebook.]

Baby TARDIS, anyone? After all, we’re told they are grown!!

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users can comment directly on Facebook.]

I travel like Tony Wheeler !
You are someone who others will come to rely on for their best travel advice and information. With any luck at all, you’ll eventually get bought out by the BBC, so you can retire, and then keep traveling anyway.
What type of traveler are you? Take BootsnAll’s Travel Quiz to find out.

Ah, I only wish the BBC would want me to be a correspondent!

[Note to LJ users commenting: Please click on the link at the top of the entry and leave a comment on my webpage, as comments left directly on LJ do not get delivered or seen by me.]

Hehe! Sarah and Joe are the two who I house/catsat for over the Summer. I organized their pantry in a fit of boredom.

Day 1, we arrived at Rainhill to take the 10:28 into Liverpool around 10:15 or so….to find out that the train had been canceled and we would have to wait an hour for the 11:28. We debated driving into Liverpool instead, but by the time we got back to the hotel and the car (a 20-30 minute walk) and drove all the way to Liverpool, we wouldn’t have saved any time. Plus, we had special “Christmas Cracker” train tickets that only cost £1 for the round trip INCLUDING access to the Merseyrail electric line though the city. There was no way we’d find parking for that cheap! We had no other problems, and I’ll tell you all about what we did in a later entry, because I know you’re all dying to hear the stuck in a loo story.

Day 2. It seemed to be a typical thing for trains to be running late or not at all on the Northern Rail lines, and today was no exception. We found out we’d wind up missing our connecting train to Blackpool if we stayed at Rainhill, but the station master suggested a short bus ride to a nearby town where we could connect directly with a Blackpool bound train. Once we got to St. Helen’s, we found out the Blackpool line was also running on a delay, but we managed to catch the earlier (now delayed) train as a result.

I really had to use the toilet, and because we arrived at St. Helen’s with only a few minutes to spare, I was unable to use the toilet in the station. The trains are equipped with toilets though, so it wasn’t going to be a problem….only it was.

The toilets on the trains are designed to run with electrically powered doors. You press one button outside to open the door, one inside to close it, and another inside to lock. When you’re ready to leave the toilet, you press the top button that opens/unlocks. I pressed the button and the door moved maybe one or two centimeters. Thinking I hadn’t disengaged it properly, I hit the close and lock buttons again and tried for open/unlock. No such luck. I banged on the door and yelled “Help! The door to the toilet is stuck!” Of course, Tim was sitting in our seats all the way in the back end of the train, so he couldn’t hear me, but someone apparently did and alerted the conductor. I banged and called for help again, and I heard the conductor tell me he was going to try to get me out. He tried squeezing his fingers through the small gap, but was unable. He told me to wait, and he went and asked the driver to reset the toilet door. He then tried to press the open button, and it still wouldn’t budge. The conductor had to use his entire body weight to pry open the toilet door far enough for me to sneak out, after which I am sure a giant “out of order” sign got placed on the loo.

Further updates later!

[note to LJ feed readers: please click on the link at the top of this entry on LJ to leave comments, as I do not see comments left on LJ!]

Me: I can’t figure out how to take the VIA Rail train out of Dauphin when I go home. There’s no platform on the other side.
Tim: [explains how they probably run both sides from the one track that has the platform]
Me: okay. But I’m confused. The timetable says the train only runs on Friday and Sunday, but the website says I can take it on Monday.
[Cue different ways of trying to figure out what's going on]
Tim: Where is the train coming from?
Me: Thompson.
Tim: look at the train times and go backwards from Dauphin
Me: [reciting times]…0117…..0012….2327….oh.
Tim: Daft woman.
Me: *facepalm*

….The train leaves Thompson on Friday and Sunday, but gets to Dauphin on Saturday and Monday.