Not long after my mother and I bought half a dozen sausages to cook on the train carriage grill, TPR suggested that we take advantage of the 40 minute break in the journey at Edinburgh Waverley station to play tourist in Midlothian. This sounded like a fun idea to me, so I plonked my mother on the back of a black pony and we led her across the by-pass to the Pentland Hills.

Of course our moorland trek took much longer than the allotted 40 minutes. By the time we realised this, the train to Inverness had left Edinburgh – with my computer and handbag, our suitcases, and the sausages.