Travel Travails

This was written Thursday morning.

"I am sat upon a GNER “express” to London. Only it isn’t expressing. “Severe Weather Restrictions” have been imposed from 10am so that the train, having left York 50 minutes late, is now crawling along at 80kmh. It is so slow it is almost as bad as by road. I have an important workshop to chair at 1pm this afternoon, and it is beginning to look in jeopardy. So it doesn’t sound too good does it? And yet, and yet. I feel most content. There is nothing I can do about it all, so I have to accept my fate. The coach is warm, I have my laptop plugged in so that I can work [very productively as it happens], I can listen to Carlos Santana to my heart’s content and just treat it as another experience. Additionally there is the drama of social mores being twisted by the situation. I am in the ‘quiet coach’ which is meant to be mobile phone free. But with the train totally packed, with people standing throughout its length, one assumes there is some latitude with this rule. Other passengers are not so sure, and there is a charming exchange about it all. Then there is the resentment people standing feel when the privileged [“the seated”] deign to get up and go to the loo, causing much disruption to the disposed “the standing”. "

The photo is of Dieppe taken whilst hitching long long ago