The Egg Collection Saga: Day 2, Sunday 12th February

I'd been full of plans to complete this series of blog posts over the weekend (as well as finally writing Pocket's introduction post) but then I caught some sort of mutant cold virus and spent most of the weekend semi-conscious in bed.

I'm feeling mostly better now (except for a horrible cough and some pulled chest/stomach muscles), so on with the Saga!

A week ago I posted about Day 1 of our progress towards Egg Collection, in case you missed that one.

We woke up bright and early on Sunday. It sounded kind of windy outside and I immediately started worrying about disruption to the ferries. It was also really weird not having a labrador to coordinate since she was already at the kennels.

Heading down town to the ferry it became very clear that it was windy and that it would be a rocky crossing. There was also a sad moment when a small bird flew in front of the car and we hit it. Me being me took this as a bad omen and immediately burst into tears. This was obviously showing that we weren't going to get any eggs, or the collection would be cancelled, or none would fertilise, or one of a hundred other awful things that I hadn't even considered.

It's probably worth mentioning here the fact that the day before, on the way home, I'd had a funny feeling that we should drive the long way to Glasgow. The long way involves taking the seven minute ferry crossing at the top of the island, then driving about 100 miles into Glasgow. It's not really the quickest or cheapest option usually, but something was telling me that this was the right way to go. I decided against mentioning this to Mr Click though, figuring it would be a lot more comfortable with my big swollen ovaries to get to Glasgow quicker rather than via the scenic route.

Well we got to the ferry, the main one, and bought our tickets. And waited. And waited. I mentioned to Mr Click that they were cutting it a little fine to get us all loaded up on the boat. About 7:50am a woman from the ticket office came over to speak to the people who were selling the car tickets. I joked to Mr Click that the boat was cancelled. We thought this was funny, because surely they'd call them over the radio, rather than sending a random woman over, without a jacket, to talk to them in person.

Turns out my joke was more accurate than I thought. The ferry had broken down and the situation was to be reviewed at 9am.

We had nowhere else to go, so we decided to wait. And we waited. And we waited.

9am came and went. I'd pulled up the CalMac website on my phone at this point and was refreshing the Service Status page every couple of minutes.

Note the time on my phone screen. Yeah. No one knew what was going on.

Eventually, about five minutes after this the website finally updated to say that the 9:30am ferry was also cancelled so Mr Click went to get a refund on our tickets from the ticket guys since we'd decided we'd have to go the long way, only to find out that they hadn't actually been told that the ferry was cancelled yet and were still telling the people pulling up it would be going out at 9:30!

We nipped over to use the loo at the ferry office and when we came out I spotted a penny on the ground. It felt like a sign that we'd made the right decision in terms of going off the top end of the island. And honestly, from here on in the day went completely right.

We weren't expecting to get to the top ferry in time, but we made it with seconds to spare. The ferry was so busy that if we'd been in a slightly larger car then there wouldn't have been room.

And the rest of the drive went totally smoothly. We drove through lots of lovely Scottish scenery and even stopped for a brief (and chilly) loo break in Luss.

In Glasgow we found our way to the hotel quickly and easily (no mean feat in the one way streets of Glasgow) and then caught a taxi to Dim Sum for some very nice lunch (and coconut ice cream served in half a coconut - amazing!) before heading back to the hotel to get checked in.

A funny thing happened on the way back to the hotel.

We strolled along towards George Square/Queen Street Station to pick up a taxi. As we passed Nelson Mandela Place we spotted a shop front that we've not only walked past multiple times, every time we've been to the hospital we've driven past it on the bus. It used to be a Pizza Hut but it's all closed up for renovation at that the moment so it's had its sign taken down, revealing a 'ghost sign' underneath.

And the ghost sign has our surname on it.

Our surname isn't a common one and is vaguely Germanic in origin so it's not really the sort of name you expect to see on a shop front in Glasgow for a Typewriter Company. The sign is probably about a hundred years old and has only just been uncovered this year. But it seemed like another nice little sign that things were going our way at last.

And when we got to the taxis? There weren't any! We had to turn around and head back to Glasgow Central to catch a taxi, but if we'd gone straight there we probably never would've noticed the sign because we'd not have crossed over the road where we did.

We were staying in the same hotel as we stayed in when we came back from Wales. The Premier Inn at Charing Cross. It's cheap and you know what to expect, but the beds are amazing, and it's a nice central location no matter where you need to be in the city. It's especially good if you're stopping the night to see a show at the Glasgow King's Theatre which is right next door.

We'd considered getting tickets to a show or visiting the cinema but there wasn't really anything on we fancied. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable when sitting or lying or standing for any long period of time so figured I'd be happier just hanging out in the hotel room. This was definitely the right decision as I found it tricky to get on and off the bed in the room, so I can only imagine how bad sitting in a cinema seat would be for two or more hours.

Remember the fantastic room we stopped in after Christmas?

Well we got another one. When we were checking in we mentioned how much we liked the corner room we'd had before, so the girl at the desk checked us into one on the opposite side of the building. There was no view of the Mitchell Library (which looks so pretty all lit up at night) but out the very corner of one of our windows we could see the general area that the hospital was in.

So we chilled, and ate, and watched TV, and read, and I wrote a pen pal letter, and filled in my bullet journal.

It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon and evening, just relaxing. And while I felt wound up at the thought of the op the next day, and all the awful things that I'd convinced myself were going to happen during it, I felt a lot less stressed and anxious than I did before my previous egg collection.

I got my bag organised for the following morning (dressing gown, slippers, lucky unicorn) and then had an early night, expecting not to sleep much but I surprised myself.