Paul needed to get back to Hull for work tomorrow, so today's job was to somehow get him back there. We'd decided that a train from Rugby, via Birmingham, was the simplest way, using the bus from outside The Wheatsheaf in Crick to get to Rugby station.
Of course, when we got to the stop we'd just missed a bus, so we took advantage of the hour's wait for the next by having lunch in the Red Lion. I had the Ploughman's, which was okay but only came with half a mini-baguette, which wasn't really enough bread for the amount of cheese. Also, pickled onions: 1.
After a fairly quick trip into Rugby, with the bus driver telling us where to get off, we got to the train station with just long enough for the rain to start, a ticket to be bought and the platform to be reached before the train arrived. Off went Paul, leaving me to work out where I was and how to get home.
Turns out that Rugby railway station isn't all that close to the town centre, at least by foot, and the rain made it a miserable journey. One good point was the camping shop I found on the way in, which sold me a waterproof case to keep my Nicholson's in. Also good was Poundland, who were selling reading glasses for £1 (natch). I'll find them useful to let me read the map when I've got contact lenses in, and if they're £1 to replace, I won't be too upset if they end up overboard (famous last words!)
After a brief and unedifying wander around, finding where to get the bus back proved more difficult than I'd expected and--you've guessed it--I'd just missed one, so it was into Café Uno for their "Two Courses for £7.99" special offer. Having best part of an hour, I had expected to manage a bowl of soup and a plate of Spaghetti Carbonara easily, however the latter didn't arrive until there were fifteen minutes to go before my bus came and I had to eat it quite quickly in order to have time to pay and return to the bus stop.
Got back to Crick okay and had a good old shop at the Co-op just across from the bus stop, but didn't reckon on the rain, which made shlepping it all back to the boat a bit miserable. While I was on my shopping journey, I overheard someone saying that today is the first day of Autumn and I think they might be right. I certainly considered putting the heating on tonight, although I actually put on a sweatshirt instead, but I'm concerned that if it's only just September and I'm thinking about heating, how will it be in a month when Autumn has really set in? I can see that the next couple of months could be quite horrid if the weather doesn't sort itself out. I was convinced that global warming meant that the UK was going semi-tropical; not from where I'm sitting it isn't.
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