Mudlarks!

A Visit to the London Docklands with Grandchildren

In May we had a rather complex arrangement for looking after grandchildren. I shall not bore you with the explanation of how it all came about (although the start of it is revealed at the end of the post on 23rd May), but a train trip to London came about when we had to return one London-based grandchild to her home while entertaining a Hertfordshire-based one and collecting from London their mutual older cousin who lives in Peterborough and had been staying with the London one's sister ... (are you still with me?).

The right socks for the right train!

Railway-wise this was all quite simple: we needed two return adult tickets for ourselves and two child return tickets, but one of the return halves would be used by a different child. Rather than just do the child delivery and exchange we planned to treat the younger two to a visit to the "Mudlarks" activities at the Museum of London Docklands, so we used Thameslink trains, booking our returns to Farringdon, from where we could take the Elizabeth Line to Canary Wharf for the museum visit. We used our Oyster Cards for onward travel and the children were young enough to travel without charge on TfL services. We just needed singles all round for getting to Peterborough from Stamford as we had an alternative means to get home.

We were in good time for their booked activities and had a a chance to look at some of the museum exhibits first. They love looking at museums and one in particular has a tendency to drag us into every museum he sees - museums are so much better than many of those I had to tolerate when I was their age. When they had finished playing we whizzed through the gift shop before they wanted everything in sight and went back to catch a westbound Elizabeth Line train as far as Paddington where we changed to the Hammersmith and City Line - it is quite a long walk right across the main terminal at Paddington and I wish I had played this interchange differently, maybe getting the District to Edgware Road and changing again, or something. I'll think about it. 

So, a London child exchanged for an older Peterborough one we made our way back on the Hammersmith and City to Farringdon for our Thameslink train to Peterborough. Travelling at the very rear of the train we were able to use the rearmost First Class section which is always - and this is advertised on the Thameslink website - available for Standard Class ticket-holders to use. That we we get a table for the children to play on (and on other trips for us to set up a picnic if we need to eat on the train) as well as better device-charging options. At Peterborough our adventure ended: we were met by car and taken for dinner at Peterborough child's home and later driven home to Stamford with remaining Hertfordshire child.

 

The Lincolnshire Show

Another Couple of Nights Away by Train

This little break in Lincoln began life when my wife had two meetings there with one day between them, and that day happened to be the first day of the 2025 Lincolnshire Show, so we decided to go to Lincoln together and attend the show for the first time in several decades; she would attend her meetings and I would do my own thing while they were in progress. The second meeting was postponed, so it turned out that one night in Lincoln would have sufficed, but we had everything booked and spent some more time together in Lincoln than planned. It is a great city, and the weather was dry, sunny and warm, so we enjoyed a really good break at the start of our summer.

We walked down to Stamford station with our little suitcases and a picnic lunch to catch the 11:55 to Peterborough which we discovered had just been held up by a signal failure and would have a considerable delay, probably enough to miss our connecting train to Lincoln at 12:28, so we swiftly decided to pop outside for a taxi to Peterborough which we shared with another passenger. This got us there just in time to take our planned train to Lincoln and for the other person to catch hers to London and we were back on course, although two-thirds of a taxi fare poorer. I would later claim Delay Repay once I discovered what the overall delay would have been had we persisted with the original planned train, and this almost met the taxi fare.

Back on track we had our picnic lunch on the train to Lincoln, including a can of white wine each, carefully kept chilled.

Our East Midlands Railway train in fact arrived five minutes early at Lincoln Central but by then we had seen that we would indeed have missed it by about half an hour and therefore would have been an hour late had we not taken the taxi to Peterborough.

Across the road to the bus station we took a bus up the hill to the Cathedral and walked round to the White Hart Hotel where we would stay for the next two nights. We were early but our room was ready and we were able to check in straight away. It was the same "cosy" room that we had had last time we stayed here, small but well provided with facilities (unfortunately not including air-conditioning, but we soon learn how best to keep the temperature down for a good night's sleep).

Alison went to her meeting which started at four o'clock at the diocesan office near the Cathedral and would include a light supper, so I wandered off for a while and then had my own light supper in the Colonnade bar at the hotel, which we'd never visited before. Very good.

The following morning was our day the the Lincolnshire Show. The Show in on a huge show ground a few miles north of Lincoln, and a shuttle bus service runs between Lincoln Central station and the show ground to take rail passengers straight to the the Show. Publicity about the bus service was rather thin and we had no idea whether it would serve any stops uphill on its way out of the city, so we played it safe and walked down to the station after breakfast to catch it from its starting point. It did indeed not pick up anyone on the way out, but then if no-one knew about it they wouldn't have been waiting it for it! In the feedback for the Show we mentioned that there might be better publicity about the bus service. Given how some people we met at the show were complaining about car parking queues, perhaps the fact that one could come by train and shuttle bus should be more prominent in Show publicity anyway. It worked very well: plenty of people boarded at Central station and the bus went swiftly out of the city to the show ground and its terminus right by one of the entrances.

It was a hot and sunny day and we enjoyed a great time at the show. Although not at all involved in agriculture for about fifty years now I still enjoy looking at machinery and equipment - animals have never been part of my life, though - and there was also very much else to see. Each of the Lincoln hotels, including our own, had a stand and there were many free samples of food and drink being given away, although we did pay for our lunch (churros, not very Lincolnshire and maybe not very healthy but it brought back memories of our recent trip to Spain!) and an ice-cream. We did spend a little time investigating possibilities for a new car to buy and enjoyed seeing some ancient and classic vehicles on parade. The Diocese of Lincoln had its usual tent and we knew a lot of people there. We attended "Hymns and Pimms" in the afternoon and then it was about time to make our way back to the bus terminal and to the city centre.

It took a while to get off the show ground in the bus because it used the same roadway as cars queueing to exit the car park. Stagecoach must have been using twice as many buses to keep up the departure frequency with so many of them stuck en route. Once on the road, though, we quickly sped into Lincoln and then decided on our evening meal.

We had heard from our daughter about a restaurant elsewhere called The Botanist with a garden theme and I knew there was one in Lincoln. We decided to give that a try and were not disappointed. The food was excellent and we were able to sit outside (there are two floors inside, too) and enjoy the life of the city centre. A special novelty was the shared dessert which came in three (imitation!) flower pots and was eaten with a pair of scaled-down spades!

This part of Lincoln city centre, Cornhill and Sincil Street, has been through a lot of careful-planned change recently and is well worth seeing. Some of the old shops in refurbished premises, some new shops, a cinema and a good sprinkling of decent restaurants and bars. The new bus station and multi-storey car park were among the first things to be complete, and with main traffic flows now routed further south the railway station is much more closely integrated with the city centre. A new hotel is the next project and I think that will be about it.

We took a bus back up the hill and enjoyed a stroll and then a cocktail in the Colonnade bar before bedtime.

After a leisurely breakfast we packed and checked out and made our way downhill to do a little shopping on our way to the railway station for our train home. 

We had a little time in hand at the station and had a cold drink in the coffee shop there - which is really good but rather tucked away and not easy to find. This time were were travelling on a LNER Azuma service via Newark which was very comfortable and left on time, arriving early in Peterborough. It was going to be a long wait for the connection to Stamford anyway, and now that we were early we decided to book a private-hire taxi instead of waiting for the train. It's not an comfortable as a train but were were at home unpacking before we'd even have left Peterborough on the next train, so although it cost extra money we thought it would have been worth it.

An Adventure to the North East

First Time with Grand Central; First Time with Cross Country on the East Coast Main Line

A mixed experience

We had a pressing invitation from friends we had been wanting to visit for ages, to their "new" home in Berwick-upon-Tweed - they'd actually lived there for five years but somehow we'd never made it. We did try to combine it with visiting other people on the way there and/or back but this did not come off and by the time we decided to give up on these complications it was becoming rather late to book our Advance tickets. I presume, who really knows, that this was why we had such a curious adventure getting there and back. This is how it went, and this is why it turned out to be an adventure of new experiences ...

There are through LNER trains between Peterborough and Berwick-upon-Tweed, but when I looked for available Advance First Class tickets, the only affordable ones required a change of train in each direction, with the first each way being provided by a different operator: it would be interesting to see what their First Class offer was like, especially on Grand Central with whom I had never travelled before: they have only quite recently begun to stop at Peterborough, where I generally begin or end my East Coast Main Line journeys.

So we started on a Grand Central train from Peterborough to York, and this left Peterborough at 09:18, a time that meant we'd have had to wait an hour there between the arrival of a train from Stamford and the departure to York, so we booked a taxi instead: getting a taxi at that time of the morning is not a cinch, but we booked one with Peterborough Cars who came out and fetched us in good time for our train. We had coffee at the station while awaiting departure, then the moment came and we boarded Coach A and found our allocated seats. The ambiance in the coach was OK and the leather seats were quite comfortable. We watched the scenery slip by at high speed as the train made its way non-stop to York en route for Sunderland. I have to say that although the ride on the track was smooth, the throb of the underfloor engines was rather intrusive. Food and drink could be delivered to seats in First Class but there was no included catering; having had our coffee we did not order anything from the on-board buffet on this leg of the journey.

Before we knew it we were in York (several minutes early) where we were to change into the LNER service bound for Edinburgh which would deliver us to Berwick. This was to depart from the same platform to which Grand Central had brought us, so no walking or navigation were required, but we had about twenty minutes to spare so we set off to explore the station a bit (and get some exercise - the big downside of having been picked up by taxi was that we did not get the walk to the station), finishing up in the new First Class lounge. We arrived back on our platform just as the train was pulling in. We had seats side-by-side at a table for four in a carriage fairly full, and now that we were with LNER the refreshments soon came around and I had my lunch before arrival in Berwick, the splendid LNER bacon roll.

We had a couple of hours before we were due to arrive at our friends' home, and spent the time exploring, or, rather, reacquainting ourselves with, Berwick town centre, noting changes since we had last visited, maybe twenty or more years ago.

We spent a happy couple of days with our friends, both at their home and out and about and returned home on a Saturday afternoon, again with a change of train I had not expected when first thinking of the trip, and again with an operator with whom I had not travelled before on the East Coast Main Line, Cross Country Trains. Both trains on the way out had arrived early: would those on the return be as timely?

The little First Class lounge at Berwick

We have travelled with Cross Country a lot. They provide our local train service with little three-car Turbostars, and we use their Voyagers from Birmingham down to the southwest and to Bournemouth, but I had never had cause to venture north of Birmingham with them before. The train we caught was from Edinburgh to Bristol, and we would be travelling as far as Doncaster. The train left Berwick-upon-Tweed on time and there was plenty of space in the First Class coach. The seats were comfortable and we had plenty of space on the tables. Ominously, but fortunately, a lady in a nearby seat came over and said that she was Cross Country staff off duty and would be pleased to get us all a drink. We asked for tea and she nipped off to the galley and brought tea, coffee or soft drinks to anyone who wanted it. I hoped that there might be an on-duty First Class host on board after the crew change at Newcastle, but the new Train Manager announced that there would be no catering all the way to Bristol Temple Meads. Now I don't expect a feast on Cross Country but I was glad I was only going to Doncaster and not Bristol, or even Birmingham. Not good. It was, however, a smooth and fast ride, although again the motor vibration was very noticeable, and we arrived on time at Doncaster. Cross Country do have a way of not quite getting it right, and this is far from the first time that we have suffered a lack of catering on their services: they just do not seem to employ enough staff. Still, at least they had a driver and train manager, so the train could run this time.

At Doncaster we had a few minutes in the First Class lounge, small but more than adequate, then boarded our LNER train for Peterborough. Again this train was on time, and as usual with LNER the catering was provided and although we only had a relatively basic menu it was very welcome and we arrived at Peterborough well-fed. We were expecting a fairly long wait for our train home to Stamford and had arrived at Peterborough several minutes early which would have made the wait even longer, so we decided to call a taxi instead, and using Peterborough Cars app we had a cab waiting for us in the time it took us to leave the station! This cost a lot more than the train but we were in our home before we'd even have left Peterborough on a train.

So we experienced four trains which were all on time or early, but when it came to catering only LNER was what we really wanted. Cross Country had no catering at all, a disgrace for a long distance inter-city service, and Grand Central had only a buffet, which we did not need at the time we were travelling with them, but if I'd been going all the way to Sunderland I might have wanted more. The ride on LNER's electric trains was smoother and quieter than the two diesels, but on the other hand it was more "bouncy" on the rails. On the whole I have not found another company that comes near LNER in terms of service, but I cannot complain about punctuality with any of the trains we used on this trip.