Today I plan to travel by myself to Hull for the weekend, by train. I’m a little bit worried as I have 4 connections and I have to hope that all depart on time, so I don’t get delayed or stranded half way through my journey.
Embarrassingly, I haven’t been fit to go down and visit any of my brothers, sisters, neices and nephews in the past 5 years; due to having extremely limited mobility pre op and of course my two year recovery post op but now I finally can!
It’s such a shame as I have missed out on so much including watching my nieces and nephews grow up. Of course, I have tried to stay in touch as much as I can but it’s not exactly the same thing.
I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling pretty anxious about the journey and the possibility of anything going wrong. I am also worried I might inadvertently sit too long and could cause another DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) as I’m high risk and have to try and take precautions to prevent another.
Also the fact that I haven’t seen my family for 5 years, and everyone will have grown up. As this is only the 4th/5th time that I will be meeting them, plus all the new faces who have entered the world over the last few years.
I think I’ve touched on this before; I’m adopted and only found my brothers and sisters about 7 years ago. I have 9 brothers and sisters and now 13 neices and nephews. Going from a small family of 3 (my parents and I) to meeting everyone was a definite shock to the system. And I still have some anxiety when we meet in a group setting. The plan is to meet everyone for brunch on the first day so that will be 13 of them (partners and children) and then me. It’s funny I’m not shy but I always am until I get used to so many people at the same time.
My first couple of train journeys were fine from my home town – Glasgow – Edinburgh. My train from Edinburgh – York however was running 22 minutes behind schedule and my next connection was departing 3 minutes after we arrived in York. (Thankfully I left 25 minutes between most of my changes to compensate for any delays) Fortunately, my York – Hull train was at platform 4 and I arrived at platform 3, so made it just and no more!
When I finally made it to Hull, I was relieved to have arrived and excited for what was to come. I booked in to my hotel, the reviews weren’t the best but I was actually pretty impressed. I suppose a double room to myself certainly helped matters, spoiled much?
Also heard that it was happy hour from 7pm – 8pm at the bar and for all that it sounded appealing, I knew I had to go unpack and nip to tescos. I bought some pan au chocolat and orange juice for my breakfast. And some irn bru and water for in the room.
By the time I got back to the hotel I nipped down to bar, ordered some food and a blue wkd. The bar man said that they only had a big bottle (700ml) compared to the smaller (275ml) which confused me however he was happy to sell me the bigger bottle at the price of the smaller one £2.80 – complete bargain!
However, I have to admit I got a little tipsier than I had planned but overall it was a cheap and cheerful first night. I starfished on the bed and was out cold within a few minutes.
Until next time..
Amytobefree 