Blanket Ladder

I eventually brought the blanket ladder I made in my woodworking class home.  This had been somewhat delayed by the fact that I was rather hoping that either R or J would help me get it from Edinburgh to here as it is a bit awkward to carry on a tram and then a train.  But for various reasons this didn’t happen, and as it was my second last week at the Open Workshop I slightly unwillingly decided to do it on my own.

The ladder actually looks rather fine – better than I remember, but it is definitely my one because it has a label with my name on it.

One of my fellow trainees on the course gave me a lift to Waverley which was very kind of her, even though we had a bit of a challenge getting it into the back of her mini.

At Waverley I bravely bought my usual sushi and crisps.  The woman at M&S gave me a strange look when I propped the ladder in the corner.

Then I very bravely got a coffee from Costa.  This made the whole ladder, bag, coffee, ticket thing very awkward and the man on the barrier gave me a strange look.  The Dundee train is always miles away from the barrier because it “parks” in front of the Glenrothes train, so the ladder and I had a brief pause half way up.

On the train I put the ladder on the luggage rack to start.

However he did not look that stable up there, so as the train was not very busy I gave him his own seat after we set off.  The conductor gave me a strange look but didn’t say anything – I was half expecting him to ask me if the ladder had a ticket.

For some reason the gap between the train and the platform in Cupar is huge!  Even without a ladder with you it is a bit of a jump, but luckily I had eaten the sushi and crisps and drunk the coffee by this time so at least the bag was gone.  I jumped for it successfully.  Here is the ladder at Cupar station – I tried to get the sign for Cupar in but it wasn’t possible on my own.  While I was taking the photo I got another couple of strange looks.

It is about 10 minutes walk home from the station – doubtless I would have had more strange looks but by 10:30pm the road was more or less deserted.

So I got the ladder home at last.    Here he is in the corner of my office.  I have christened him Albert in honour of the Victorian house.

Tomorrow he will be varnished and given pride of place in my bathroom with some new navy blue towels on him.

This whole saga rather reminds me of “Round Ireland with a fridge”.  “Round Scotland with a ladder”.