Local public transit

I find railway travel to be fairly pleasant overall, especially as it means that I need not drive or park. This morning, my seat on the carriage affords me a view of sunrise over the North Sea, there are some lovely coastal routes for quite some distance north and south from here.

One thing that didn't amuse me was that one must pay to use the station toilets. Unfortunately, this seems common at bus stations as well as railway stations. I am all for their covering maintenance via what they charge operators or whatever, money for overheads must come from somewhere, but charging people in transit who may have many small children or continence issues or whatever just seems mean to me, especially where they demand exact change. I find this as disappointing as town councils who like to encourage visitors at times when they have locked up the public toilets. I am not going to be lingering in your retail area if I don't have easy access to toilets.

Another bother is that the wrong train came: the seat reservations are a mess so I may lose a chunk of work time in giving my seat up for somebody more deserving, we shall see. This train is slower than the one planned but I am not on a deadline. It tends to be ScotRail with the issues, I usually have more luck with LNER, but I am not a frequent traveler so the sample size is small.

My family is settling

With my family finally being here, I have been quite busy, helping with all the settling in, and enjoying time with them, alongside full-time work. I am the only driver but they also have plenty available within walking distance. They are adapting well to the cold and I am pleased that they have found various new foods that they like. They have been a great help around the flat, and it is a pleasure to be back with them after our traveling a couple of weeks apart.

I wonder if we may buy a house of some kind in the New Year, I hope so. I will have been in my job for six months by then, which tends to reassure lenders that it's a steady gig. There are some great flats available but I fear the hassle of working with unchosen neighbors on communal maintenance issues. The first job is to figure our new household budget in more detail to determine what is truly affordable.