A bit of train spotting....

Thursday 5th February 2015

We were up reasonably early today because we were going into Manchester today to look into getting a new visa or better.

So it was a bus from Bollington to Macclesfield and after weighing up carrying on with the bus all the way we decided on taking the train into Manchester.
The bus simply would have taken too long (just on 2 hours) against a much shorter train trip (20 minutes or so).

As we were a bit early - now that's strange for us - we walked from Manchester Picadilly to the lawyers and still were 30 minutes early - coffee and danish just around the corner and then into go through the process.

It's nice to be individual but when the lawyer you are speaking to says she has not seen one like this and is very complicated - and she needs to consult others before being able to give a definitive answer, you know this isn't going to quick.
And it doesn't look like it may end happily.

There are things that she has to do and things that we have to do, but we will be back there again next week - hopefully with some answers and better news.

Might have to start planning a trip back to Australia and a lengthy stay - wait and see.

Whilst in Manchester, Diane had a list of things that apparently we needed, so we managed to cross off most of the list.

Pretty soon we were back at the station ready to head home - 2 trains stopping at Macclesfield and the first just about to go, so we hot footed it to the platform just as the doors were being closed and it was heading off.

Of well, we will wait for the next one - just 40 minutes - or so I thought.

The suggestion came from "her indoors" and went along the lines of "we can catch the Virgin train stopping at Stockport and this one will overtake the one we just missed and we can then change platforms and catch that one" - at least I thought it was a suggestion, but my mistake was misunderstanding - she was heading off to the platform.

What could go wrong?

Diane pointed out the train that we were passing was the one we missed; arrived at Stockport and got off - I did take the chance to advise the woman using her phone that we were sitting in the Quiet Zone and she really shouldn't be using her phone - "Oh, terribly sorry, I didn't see the signs", as I left "Should've gone to Specsavers eh?".
The train was approaching on the other platform, so we ran down and then up the stairs; the kind man held the train and we made it.

Talking to the lady sitting in front with the cute dog (called Ralph - the dog was, not the lady), we asked how many stops to Macclesfield - "Oooh, I think you have the wrong train - we are going to Buxton" - thank you we said.
So off at the first station - Davenport - and a 30 minute wait for the return train.

Back at Stockport we made sure that this time we asked; got on the right train; and then the bus back to Bollington - by now it was after 4 pm - about a 2 and 1/4 hour trip - just slightly longer than we had anticipated when we were about to leave Manchester.

Later on we got ourselves ready - Paul and Elaine were picking us up - it was Elaine's birthday, so no matter the things that had happened during the day we cheered up for that - off to The Cock and Pheasant (I can almost hear Dot and Sue making comments about the name!).
 

Diane, Elaine, Margaret (Paul's mum) and Paul

Yes, you guessed it - the empty wine bottle was their doing

The food was good and afterwards there was a trivia night on - so we just had to stay for that. Sad to say, that although we finished strongly our first two sets of questions let us down badly - but we managed a creditable 38 out of 60.