Imber (not) revisited

Ten years ago, we visited the lost village of Imber.  At the time, I'm not sure how well-known the day was, other than by transport nerds (hey, I never said I wasn't one!), and it was pouring with rain.  Today, things are very different.

We travelled on a UK Railtour charter, which was comfortable but I'm not  100% sure it was worth it.  On the other hand, it did mean we got programmes and a guaranteed, comfortable seat.  We did, however, have to be at Waterloo before 10:00 am, which meant I had to miss tai chi.  However, it was a civilised hour to leave, and the journey was uneventful.

We had learnt that there was an exhibition about Imber in Warminster itself, a few minutes' walk from the station.  It closed at 1:00 pm, so we went there first.  It was quite good, but I thought very biased about how ghastly what the army did was, etc.  Well yes, but we were at war, and other villages and owners of big houses had it every bit as bad, if not worse.

As the queues for the buses had been stretching round the block, with not a bus in sight, we decided to have lunch first, as the queues were supposed to get shorter in the afternoon (spoiler: they didn't!).  We found a very nice tiny café that did us sandwiches and salad, but first we visited the St Lawrence Chapel, which was lovely.  The vicar and - I think - a churchwarden were around, and told us all about the stained glass and so on.  

We walked back to the station only to find that the queue was longer than ever, a good 500 metres long, if not longer.  A bus did arrive while we watched, but it was obviously only going to take a tiny fraction of those waiting  So we decided that, as we had already been to Imber, we would explore Warminster instead.  We found a lovely public park, where we sat and read until we got too cold, and then went and had afternoon tea in Coffee #1 - at least, I had tea but the SW had coffee.  I had an oatmeal-raisin cookie, and the SW had some chocolate concoction that looked rather rich.  But lovely comfortable armchairs, and a loo!  We had, actually, hoped to have had a cream tea at St Lawrence's, but when we got there we found that this would be being served tomorrow, not today.  Bother!  

Then we wandered back to the station, which was a bit of a mistake as it was very crowded and there wasn't really anywhere to sit.  In hindsight, we should have hung on in the café for another 10-15 minutes.  On the other hand, we were able to see a great many Routemasters and other buses dropping people back! 

Our train arrived at last, and we were glad to sit in it.  I felt very tired on the way home, and it was very noisy and tiring.  We got a bus at Waterloo, and then picked up a ready-meal in Lidl. 

I do rather think that Imberbus Day has outgrown itself.  It's not fun having to queue for over an hour to get on a bus, especially if you have to get back on a deadline.  The various little villages on the route all do tea and cakes now, which they didn't when we first went.  I don't know how long they will be able to continue, especially since the buses are all owned by enthusiasts and are not getting any younger.

Meanwhile, my mother was finally repatriated today, and is now in hospital in Worthing!  The hold-up was due to the insurance - the French hospital would have liked rid of her two weeks ago, and the ambulance had been on stand-by for her since 6 August!  Sigh.