I bought a cheap rail ticket in a sale at the start of the year, keeping my fingers crossed that 17th February would be a fine day. Thankfully it was so I've just come back from a fine day out. Normally at this point I'd tell you all about it but I got back quite late and there wasn't time. I will tell you all about it but for now let me tell you about the journey, not because it was interesting but because I haven't been on enough long journeys recently.
0615: It's always a relief when your alarm clock goes off at the right time on a day trip. It'd be all too easy to set it wrong and sleep in and miss your train, wasting all that money you spent seven weeks ago. 0645: It's always a balancing act putting just enough into a rucksack (food, reading material, thermos) but not so much it weighs you down all day. 0655: Don't touch the barrier with your usual card, it doesn't work this early. 0700: It's always a relief when the tube's running properly on a day you've bought a special rail ticket, so you are going to get to the departure station in time and won't be wasting all that money you spent seven weeks ago. 0705: The bloke sitting opposite gets out his smoking paraphernalia to prepare a roll-up, then drops his bag and spills poundsworth of tobacco all over the carriage floor, then scoops most of it back into his bag and prepares a tarnished roll-up.
0745: I asked for a forward-facing window seat. Instead they reserved me a backward-facing seat unaligned with any window. All that lovely scenery out there and I'm staring at a grey bulkhead with a thin sliver of outside. 0810: The guard is selling a standard ticket to a tourist who's boarded without buying one. That ticket costs them £93 return, which is five times what I paid and he's only going half as far. 0820: Denise does an announcement apologising for the limited catering, She's prioritising first class and the rest of us won't get a full service until the last fifteen minutes of the train's journey when the crew changes over. 0840: Most of the passengers on board pile off, so I take the opportunity to sneak into a proper window seat - that's better. 0841: A young lad boards the train and dives into the viewless seat I just vacated, despite there now being loads of other spare seats. Fool, I think, but over the next hour he never takes his eyes off his phone so he's missing nothing.
0900: When I booked this ticket, aiming for a riverside town, the weather was sub-zero and wintry. Since then it's rained almost non-stop and the landscape outside the window is now seriously flooded, all overspilled rivers and underwater meadows and puddled fields. Doesn't bode well for later. 0900: A second ticket check, but this time it's civilians in tabards doing a 'ticket audit'. 0930: I'm wearing walking boots, but maybe I should have brought wellies. 0945: The guard walks down the platform holding a quiche. 0950: I've got a lot of reading done.
I then walked around Town One for three hours. Only one road was so flooded that I had to turn round and go back the way I came. I surprised a birdwatcher in a purple anorak. I saw plenty of snowdrops. I did not see the famous pop star. The lady in the Tourist Information Office was lovely. The bridge was quite something. I noted that 'large cod' in the local chippie is only £8.90 so we're being fleeced in London. I spotted the pub I didn't go to in 1984.
1300: I caught the bus from Town One to Town Two. Fares outside London are still £3, mostly. The next stops were announced very loudly, and quite early.
I then walked around Town Two for three hours. Only one path was so flooded that I had to turn round and go back the way I came, but a lot were very muddy. I heard a lot of birdsong. The lady in the Tourist Information Office was brusque. I noted that 'large cod' in the local chippie is only £8.95 so we're being fleeced in London. I chatted to a man called Robert who said the flooding was worse yesterday. I didn't spot the newsagent where I bought a copy of Record Mirror in 1984.
1700: The return trip wasn't especially noteworthy.
The last time I was in the area was 40 years ago, just after leaving university. I'd somehow made some cool friends there, one of whom lived in Hillingdon and one of who lived on a farm outside Town One. So First Friend and I decided to drive out to the farm and surprise Second Friend, mainly because we only had an address not a telephone number so couldn't warn him in advance. First Friend was so cool he had a Rover 800 and had been employed to steward at the final Wham! concert two weeks earlier. It was a three hour drive and on the way we stopped off so First Friend could buy some Insignia gel and I could buy Second Friend a Toblerone as a thankyou. We also stopped off at a local phonebox to ring Directory Enquiries, but the number they gave us turned out to be Second Friend's gran so wasn't much use.
Second Friend was extremely surprised to see us, lumbering around the farm in his wellies near the polytunnels. We joined in with the day's work in the top field which involved sitting on the back of a tractor-pulled contraption and planting savoy cabbages. Sorry, we put some of them in upside-down. After 24 rows we went switched jobs and picked some courgettes, then hitched a ride back to the farmhouse on the back of a truck. Second Friend's mum was very pleased to see us and served up cake and raspberries, I think pleased her son had genuinely made some friends. We overscrutinised the contents of his bedroom, sat round the Aga in the kitchen and got an invite to his sister's next big party. For a surprise visit it all went surprisingly well, plus when we finally got home I was able to give my Dad seven courgettes and a savoy cabbage. I sometimes wonder if my social life peaked right there.
