LEJOG Day 2 – Penzance to Perth

I had hoped for a reasonable night’s sleep ahead of getting the 6.28am train from Penzance but I ended up co-sleeping with Sophie whose dreams clearly featured her as a Riverdancing octopus if the amount of fidgeting was anything to go by. Thankfully my sense of adventure overrode my usual morning grumpiness and although it was a bit of a rush to get to the station, at least I wasn’t too zombie-like!

The train journey from Penzance to Edinburgh was our longest at around eleven hours so we had treated ourselves to First Class seats. We’d booked early enough to get a good deal price-wise. Having a table, a little more space and being kept fed and watered meant a much happier journey for all of us. Both Jessica and Sophie coped amazingly well all the way to Edinburgh. We looked out at the scenery, played Bus Stop and did lots of drawing, colouring and sticking – and of course the iPads helped occupy the girls too! As we crossed the border into Scotland, Sophie dozed off for a while. Her sleeping position didn’t look very comfortable to me but she was clearly ok with it!

There was time for a short stop at Edinburgh where we managed to catch up with our friend James and stop for a drink at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The girls and I quite enjoyed playing with the story stones. We also visited one of Chris Hoy’s gold postboxes which was one of the first ones we visited when we started our Olympic gold postbox challenge almost exactly four years ago.

We had originally intended to stay overnight in Edinburgh but with the Fringe taking place it was a bit too busy (not to mention expensive!) so we booked a room at the Premier Inn in Perth which was a much more reasonable price! As it turned out, we could have stayed in Edinburgh as James very kindly invited us to stay overnight, but we couldn’t cancel our booking in Perth so decided to continue onwards instead.

I have to say I have been so impressed at just how well the girls have coped with all the travelling but the journey to Perth was really one journey too many as far as they were concerned. It wasn’t helped by having to squash into a corner for the first part of the journey but both girls were very tired. They both react differently when overtired – Jessica by getting over-sensitive and weepy and Sophie by becoming very hyperactive. The train journey to Perth felt like a very long one!

 

“The moon” (Premier Inn) was about 15 minutes’ walk from the station – not ideal with two tired children and a hangry mummy and daddy. It was a relief to get some food and get the girls to bed!

 

Thankfully we don’t have to get quite such an early train tomorrow – hopefully the girls will sleep in a little as well!

 

We are doing our LEJOG challenge in aid of Little Hearts Matter, a charity which supports children like Jessica who have half a working heart.  If you would like to find out more and/or sponsor us on our challenge, please visit our fundraising page.