It’s been a year since my South African
train journey and this week, I found myself on another train journey. This time it was back home in the UK where I
am having a holiday. It was snowing and
I was heading north to visit my friend and see my god-daughter’s school
play.
Needless to say, it was a very
different journey, but it was interesting for different reasons...it began with
beautiful snow covered fields and early morning winter skies of pale blue and
grey with tinges of pink and yellow from a weak wintry sun. Snow eventually disappeared, to be replaced
by shades of brown, yellow, green, orange and golden straw stalks with a watery
blue sky back drop. Water pooled in the bare,
ploughed fields from recent downpours.
We passed roads and motorways and industrial estates and towns with
endless rows of houses. A hay-bale
castle sat amid a bare field. Stations
old and new were passed through with ranks of cars lined up in adjacent car
parks. At each stop heaters would blow
hot air to protect us from the arctic blasts.
Every stop we were reminded to mind the gap, or the step, or the
slippery platform.
We passed pylons and
cables and power stations and sub-stations.
We passed fields of sheep and cows (concrete and real). Roads and paths and bridges criss-crossed the
countryside. People were out walking
dogs and sheltering next to straggly hedgerows as they navigated the wind-blown
fields and open spaces. Horses and
canals and water treatment plants and static caravan sites and sports fields
and houses old and new and pubs and churches with spires peeking above the tree
tops all passed by the window. You could
see for miles...but not a single banana tree in sight, or a loaded bicycle, or
a goat being walked to market. No
children lined the route to wave as we passed.
No one wanted to start up a conversation with me. No one told the driver he was going too fast,
or too slow. We travelled together in
isolation.
