Traveling without moving

It's a bit annoying that despite moving north of London (to Oxford), it now takes me longer to travel home to Dundee.

Yesterday I left work at about 3pm and eventually got home at about 10.30pm. At least 7.5h traveling!

Leaving work at 3pm I rode my bike back to the flat, then quickly packed and got a bus into town. I then walked to the train station to catch the 4.30pm train to Birmingham International.

There's something wrong with catching a train that going to eventually terminate in Edinburgh, with the intention of getting off in Birmingham and flying to Edinburgh. It's a pretty rubbish journey that train takes to Edinburgh though - it goes via Glasgow. Looking at the train timetable it would have got me into Edinburgh at 10.30pm - 1.5h after my flight was scheduled to get into Edinburgh. As it was my flight was 30min delayed, but as it was getting off the train and hanging around in Birmingham airport still got me into Edinburgh faster than the train I had got off. It's probably also much cheaper to do it this way as the UK trains are a rip-off.

The problem with flying anywhere in the UK is the trains. You consider you have to me at your flight 1.5-2h before departure to check-in. Of course there is no way you can rely on the trains to get you there on time because they are so reliably unreliable, so you have to add an hour 'just in case' here, and another hour there. Before you you know it you'd be faster cycling home. Even without a saddle.

I suppose I should go plant a tree to make up for the carbon costs of flying to Edinburgh instead of staying on the train. Well the plane would have gone there with or without me so what's the difference?

Actually I was thinking of chopping down a random tree today, but to atone for my flight I will refrain from doing that. Wow - I'm an environmentalist! Seems funny that word has 'mentalist' in it... What sort of mentalist are you? I'm an environmentalist.

Today's plan in Dundee: Walk doggies with family. Later - go binge drinking.

Tomorrow: Recover. Possibly cook eggs benedict for family.