Transport - A story by a Ukrainian living in Scotland

I come from a big city with a great transport system so I've never had to wait for my bus or tram for more than 5 minutes unless it is late in the evening. Public transport is very different here in Scotland and trips need a lot of planning.

One Saturday morning I had big plans. I was going to the library in another town to do a workshop on painting on silk. After that I wanted to walk around with my son and visit the Viking festival. Later I planned to have dinner somewhere and watch a firework display in the evening.

It was raining heavily in the morning, and I wanted to stay in bed but I made an effort and got up, cooked breakfast, got my son ready and packed some snacks. We went out to catch the bus to the railway station. We waited in the rain for 10 minutes but the bus didn't arrive. I didn't want to wait 20 minutes for the next one so I decided to go to another bus stop. This was probably a bad decision because it was 15 minutes' walk away but I thought that the other bus was more regular and reliable.

So we walked to the other bus stop. My child was moaning that he wanted to go home and play on his tablet. I was trying to persuade him that he would have a wonderful day out but I must admit that I didn't believe my own words. We walked to the other bus stop and eventually the bus arrived. I was very happy.

At last, 1 hour after leaving the house we arrived at the railway station. I looked at the screen and thought I didn't understand the information correctly. So I opened the ScotRail website and it was true, the next train was not for an hour! I was going to be an hour late for the workshop. I was devastated…. We were sitting on a bench and it was raining. I kept checking the timetable and I didn't know what to do. My plans were ruined!

In the end we went to Aldi and bought a lot of snacks, sweets, fruit, cakes, Cola, a bottle of wine for me and went home. My child was absolutely happy. When we arrived home, we drank some hot tea, ate cakes and I started planning my next trip to Edinburgh.