MY OLD mate Dave, who lives in Hull, got in touch the other week and suggested that we meet up.

We agreed that we’d get a train to Bridlington and have a stroll on the out-of-season beach and then have some very-much-in-season fish and chips.

I’d get the X19 to Doncaster and the train to Brid and he’d join me in Hull and we’d rattle about old times as the train rattled into Bridlington.

I hatched a plan to write this week’s column about it and I even had an opening line: ‘Ian and Dave went to Brid and this is what Ian and Dave did in Brid’.

Because the traffic had been bad I decided to go for the bus before the one I really needed, just like I often go for the train before the train before the train before just to make sure I get to where I need to be.

I was really looking forward to my day in Brid; I’d not seen Dave for ages and we a lot of catching up to do.

As the bus stop approached I happened to look at my phone and I’m glad I did, although to be honest I was glad and sorry at the same time.

I’d got a text from Dave saying he was poorly and couldn’t make the Bridlington trip; I was really sorry that out day out wasn’t happening but I was glad that I hadn’t got on the bus then checked my phone and had to get off at the next stop or gone all the way into Donny and then had to come back on the next bus.

Dave didn’t go into details about what was wrong with him although he hinted it was some kind of stomach bug.

Mind you, he did say in the text that he’d ‘spare me the grizzly details’ which suggested he might have been attacked by a bear down Humber Street.

So Ian and Dave didn’t go to Brid and I can’t say what Ian and Dave did in Brid.

Except maybe I can, because I’m a writer after all. Maybe I could speculate on what we did and write about it and because it never happened I can’t get it wrong.

Good idea, or as my young grandson Louie says, ‘dood idea!’ which doesn’t mean that it’s a dud idea.

I present to you Ian and Dave’s Imaginary Day In Brid and This Is What Ian and Dave Might Have Did In Brid.

I climbed onto the X19 and immediately found a pound coin on the floor. I held it up: ‘Anybody lost a quid?’ I said and my follow passengers all shook their heads and said ‘no, thee keep that quid, kid’.

So do you know what? I did. I knew at that point that Ian and Dave’s day in Brid would be a good one, but I didn’t realise as the X19 sped through the dark morning what a really good day in Brid it would be.

At Doncaster the train was on time and I just had time to get an espresso from the lovely Draughtsman bar on platform three.

There’s nothing like a sharp espresso to set you up for the day and as I paid for it I noticed a five pound note on the floor. I passed it over to the bloke behind the bar but he said ‘it’s okay my friend, you keep it – finders keepers and all that’. So I did.

I got a seat on the train and looked out across the landscape as it began to lighten as we headed east. It wasn’t a great morning, weather wise but I was pleased to note that as we trundled towards Hull the weather seemed to be improving.

As did my financial health because I found another fiver and a 50p piece on the train seat. I checked my weather app and it said low cloud for everywhere except Bridlington where there would be bright sun and warmth all day.

Dave got on the train in Hull and we shook hands warmly. He flourished a ten pound note. ‘I just found this on the platform’ he said.

‘The fish and chips are on me!’ and I showed him the money I’d found earlier in the day and said ‘no, the fish and chips are on me!’ and the sun broke through a cloud and we both darted for a two-pound coin that gleamed on the train floor.

What a day out that proved to be. Shame it didn’t really happen…