I mean drinks. Of course I do. There was no murder.
After I arrived at King’s Cross, which was not Euston, I then had to travel home again. After I’d done what I came for. To confuse matters, I travelled home from Euston.
Rather than spend the night in a hotel (I find I’m going off hotels) I suggested to Son we should book ourselves on the Caledonian Sleeper, and travel in style. I’m keener now, since discovering the beds have new mattresses and pillows, as well as duvets and duvet covers. The beds are still narrow, but the rest is fine.
We had an interconnecting door between our ‘rooms.’ Son was awfully excited by this and had to take a photo. (I hasten to add that he is so young and I am so old, that both of us qualify for a third off the fare, which is how you make this affordable. Before you think I’m rich, or something.)
He then invited me for a bedtime drink in the Lounge. It was very civilised and straight out of Agatha Christie. (Until the Americans turned up.)
While Son had something I’m glad mother-of-witch couldn’t see, I had tea. Or it would have been tea had the lovely barman not forgotten the teabag. But that just added to the jollity, and with teabag, the tea tasted like nectar. (Well, it had been a long day.)
There were a few other passengers drinking, chatting politely to strangers across the aisle. Someone ‘old,’ who looked like they came straight from the opera, and a white-shirted beautiful young man who could have starred in any Poirot you care to mention.
So there we were, enjoying our Agatha-ness and the sophistication of sleeper travel. No one was being murdered or anything.
When in walked a party of Americans, maybe ten of them. I love Americans, but these were so very American, somehow. Loud, dissatisfied with what they found, ordering American whisky and not liking there was none. Suggesting there ought to have been soft music in the background. (Wouldn’t have been enough of a sound barrier.) Taking photos of each other and wanting to put them on Facebook, asking if there was wi-fi.
Thank goodness there was no wi-fi.
There could have been murder. (I’m hoping they went to Glasgow. I didn’t see them – or hear them – in the morning.)
The Occasional Bookwitch 
Oh, oh that sounds wonderful. I’ve only been on the Caledonian Sleeper once, coming back from London, and I had to get the one where you just have a seat, that reclines somewhat, and I only got THAT because it was only marginally more expensive than the bus, and the bus was SO awful the one time I tried it that I’d never do it again. And I was freezing the whole night because of the air conditioning. I was sitting there in my coat and my hat, and scarf and gloves, and I didn’t sleep a bit.
But your experience sounds just like something from Agatha Christie – even with the Americans, because whenever she has Americans they always come across as a bit brash and loud.
I would have been just as excited by your son about the connecting doors.
Oh dear, I can tell you were ripe for another kind of murder, if only to warm up from the air conditioning.
If it helps, it was freezing cold when I went to the ‘bathroom’ on account of this being ancient rolling stock with plenty of ‘ventilation’ and it was a cold night…
I shall have to do the thing ‘properly’ one time, and pretend I’m on the Orient Express. Except without the murder. Or maybe on my way to Hogwarts.
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