The Journey out of Cornwall - Devon to Milton Keynes

I stopped taking pics after Dawlish. The train line leaves the sea there and becomes a lot less interesting. Considering how far it travels, the train stops at very few places, I think there's only about 15 stops. After it leaves Devon it's basically an express service that only stops at the main city stations like Exeter, Taunton and Reading. From Reading it doesn't stop until it reaches Paddington Station, which this train did at 14:20. Yes 2:20, it left Penzance at 9:04 - what a long journey, but great if you are a stitcher. I always make a bee-line for the seats with the tables so I can spread out all my stitching, project folders etc.

At Paddington, I made my way via the underground to Euston to catch the Milton Keynes train. I got on the Circle Line - (well thought I'd got on a Circle Line train - but it was actually a District Line train - so I had to get off again at Notting Hill Gate and wait for the next Circle Line train to show up - which took quite a few minutes to come in - I toyed with the idea of leaving the underground and going up to Notting Hill market to see if I could find that house with the Blue door and see if Hugh Grant was home, LOL), and then the Victoria line to Euston.

According to the timetables I printed off the First Great Western website there should have been a Virgin train at 3:18 - there was no listing for this on the station boards, the next Milton Keynes train left at 3:34, so I had just enough time to pop to the loo in the station - 20 PENCE FOR A PEE!!! WHAT A CHEEK! - and get a Texan Whopper Meal from the Burger King in the station before getting on the Milton Keynes train. It wasn't a Virgin train - the Milton Keynes train service was being run by a company called Silverlink. That was a contrast from the First Great Western trains - quite a comedown. Reminds me of the shoddy Connex South East service that I used to put up with back in Kent.

I sat down on the train to eat my Whopper - two women sitting opposite me looked at me with disgust. I didn't care, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and apart from half a tube of pringles which I'd munched on the journey to Paddington, this was the first real food (if you could call Burger King real food?) I'd had that day. Thinking that the journey to Milton Keynes (hereafter referred to a MK) would take the same duration as on the Virgin Train, I sent a text to Jayne saying I'd arrive about 4:10.

But this Silverlink train was no Virgin train, in fact, a superfast modern Virgin train capable of 125 mile an hour travel actually cruised past the one I was on while my train was going flat out. It was also stopping at every station, so instead of the 4:10 eta I'd sent Jayne, it was actually more like 4:40 when it arrived at MK. I texted Jayne with an updated ETA, but still received no response - so I tried calling her a few times because she was going to arrange a lift from the Station to the Hotel that we were staying. I couldn't get through on the phone, it was either coming up as busy or going straight to voicemail. Very strange.

I arrived at the station and sent Jayne another message saying I was going to wait in a cafe until I heard from her. I sat for about 20 minutes, but still not a word. In the end, I jumped into a taxi and went to the Inn at Woburn by myself. £16 later I arrived.