The end of the weekend.

So he we are back in Delph after a weekend in the sunny but windy North East of England, where they all speak with a lovely singsong lilt and an astounding number do actually go out in the evening without their coats. Coming back from a meal out on Saturday night we heard a bunch of youngish men, all in jeans and t-shirt, no jackets, mocking another friend just a little further up the road: "Look at him in this TRENCH coat!!!!" 

There were even little kids yesterday morning out and about with their bare arms. As for me, I had my woolly hat and gloves on. 

 The bus and metro into Newcastle centre worked fine. Our train was waiting at the platform but no-one was allowed on until about two minutes before the train was due to depart. This of course led to a flurry of activity as people hunted for their seats prior to departure. A lot of pointless hanging around on a windy platform. 

The public address system on the train advised those who had standing-only tickets (who knew that you buy such tickets?) could upgrade to a seat by paying an extra £6.00. After Darlington, (well, I think it was Darlington) there was another announcement that people who had boarded the train with tickets for the earlier train which had been cancelled could collect a form from the company's complaints desk at their destination and apply to have their fare refunded. If your train is delayed by more than an hour, it seems, you can do this. What an excellent bit of customer service! 

I heard one poor soul trying to buy a single ticket for a station a little further down the line, only to be told that our train would not be stopping there. He would have to go on to York and catch another train back, presumably costing him rather more money. The moral of that story is that you should always check your train before boarding. Someone else obviously had the same idea as she was frantically asking people if this was the Manchester train as the doors closed. She expressed some concern to her small daughter that Grandma and Granddad might have just ushered them into the first train that came along in their haste to be rid of them Are there really grandparents like that? 

We however had our reserved seats and were fine. Perhaps not quite so exclusive as on our toward journey when we had travelled first class and received free coffee and buns. For some crazy reason, when we booked our tickets online it had been cheaper to travel first class on that particular train booked on that particular day. How very odd! 

So there we were, in our seats, equipped with the newspaper to keep us busy. I discovered some interesting facts: 

•  The NHS pays out huge amounts of money for agency nurses - up to £1,800 per day per nurse - because there has been a reduction in training places for nurses!! Can you believe it? 

• UKIP is recruiting young members. the junior branch is called Young Independence and some 2,600 young "kippers" are out campaigning for the party!! Not good! 

• The latest trend is for breakfast raves. In London, and now apparently in Liverpool, there are monthly opportunities to dance in the morning before going on to work. Organised by people who enjoyed going to raves in the 1980s, these are like early morning parties but without alcohol there are people who get up early, spend an hour dancing happily and then get changed into their office clothes and go on to work. The dancing gets the adrenalin going and sets them up for the day. 

• Leading tobacco manufacturers are backing an organisation aimed at warning people that if they don't help defend rights of smokers then their right to overeat and overdrink might also become subject to "regulation". This as there is already talk of putting warnings on bottles about the calorific value of alcoholic drinks - 170 calories in a glass of wine or half of lager, etc., as if they will stop people drinking. Somehow I have my doubts, and anyway that's not really a reason to say that smokers should be allowed to pollute our atmosphere. Not until watching people eat makes you put on weight anyway. Although I might agree to the forced closing of smelly hot dog stands. 

• And then we were back in Manchester and catching the tram back to Oldham. There were few seats available. A smart young man occupied an aisle seat, leaving the window seat empty. When I asked him to move over, he gestured for me to sit by the window and then proceeded to ask me how the tram system worked and what he needed to do about a ticket. I pointed out that he should have bought a ticket before boarding and he produced such a ticket but he was confused about who he needed to show it to. So I told him about ticket inspectors and so on and then, being a nosy person and somewhat intrigued by his accent, I asked where he was from. He was Russian and was on his way to "study" in Oldham, together with a couple of compatriots, something related to his unidentified profession. 

 We chatted about Russia and how English people view it. He told me that reading Tolstoy in translation was no good, rather like just looking at pictures of food. Well, I would probably agree with that but Russian isn't one of my languages, unfortunately. Our conversation was cut short when Phil found us two seats together and I moved over. Shortly after this my new Russian friend came over to ask for advice on getting to his final destination, a hotel in Oldham. We consulted websites on the phone and found out which was the best tram stop for him. Others in the compartment joined in the advice-giving and by the time he and his friends alighted they were accompanied by a couple of locals prepared to point them in the right direction for the last stage of their journey. Perfect!