Fat chance. Bloomin' trains were crowded out. And everyone is assigned seats these days, so some people hopelessly wander around trying to find where they should be, and some people just take whatever seat they fancy and then the people whose seat that should be come along, and then everyone plays musical chairs, or not... and the announcements on the tannoy are clearly supposed to be in English, but blow me if I could understand a word of what the chap said...
...an elderly Italian couple were clearly confused by the whole experience, and were trying and failing to get seats next to each other, so I gave up my seat so that they could sit together, and they were politely grateful and I got to sit with a chap who lectures in architecture at UWE. We exchanged life stories, in the way you do when passing the time on a journey. And I got to sit by a proper window facing forward, so I could keep an eye out for Adlestrop. But I failed to see it. I told the architecture chap about the Edward Thomas story. I suggested a sequel to the poem which starts "I've forgotten Adlestrop".
The seat in which I sat was reserved from Cheltenham to Birmingham, so I prepared myself to surrender my place when we pulled into Cheltenham. But the woman whose seat it evidently should have been, continued down the carriage and found somewhere else. And then subsequently had a chat with the people among whose number was the woman whose seat she was now occupying.
You see? -the ripple effect. I felt really quite anarchic.
And then the next leg of the journey from Birmingham New Street I was squeezed next to a Very Large woman who was reading a free copy of Metro, munching her way through a huge bag of crisps and listening to her i-pod (ta - sheeee - shhhhch - ch - shsssshhhhh - schhhhh). And not only colonising the arm rest, but making inroads into my territory too. So we played an unacknowledged game of Lebensraum, which passed the time, though not as congenially as a good read of Mrs Miniver.
You make it sound a lot of fun. I hope I get to sit next to you on a train one day, though we'd probably argue about who gets the window.
ReplyDeleteDid you get to the end of your journey or did they put you all off the train because it was needed somewhere else?
You could not have made that picture up in a thousand years. It says it all. what is it about railway stations? I was waiting for Dom at La Rochelle one eveing and came face to face with a life size poster of an African girl asking for water, she had ever such a tiny bowl and the caption said 'sorry there isn't enough for you'. I won't forget that one.
I think you should get an award for it.
To me it sounded rather fraught!
ReplyDeleteI used to love travelling by train...
Glad you enjoyed your gentle form of anarchy!
ReplyDeleteSounds like the crisp muching, i-pod blaring, arm rest hogging woman was attempting to pad herself (even more) against the anonymous... perhaps someone should tell her that talking to strangers stops them being strangers.. though maybe increasing their strangeness!
That is a priceless picture. Did you ask him?!
ReplyDeleteThe train managed to get there, Anji. I've only had one train-breaking-down experience. So far.
ReplyDeleteThe photo was part of the Iwitness exhibition, organised by Bristol's Pierian Centre
It's a shame that so many people are so reserved or afraid. It can come across as unfriendliness, which is probably not what is intended. It's striking how, when something goes wrong, people usually perk up and interact quite readily.
No, Jo. If you ask someone, they will either say no or strike a pose. Far better to snap away as unobtrusively as possible and smile a lot if spotted.
...the photo of the refugee, that is, not my photo...
ReplyDelete