Back to the Watchtower

Speeding North via the East Coast line to open up the cottage and check
the drying process; it's barely rained here, but North of Hadrian's
Wall - who knows?

Eyewitnesses tell me that the repaired ditch has held, so the river
should be flowing through it's regular channel again, and not my front
door. And if the river has gone the weasels (it was weasels, not mink,
it seems) should have moved on, and stopped using my spare duvets as a
larder.

I dropped an off-hand suggestion that I might use some of my holiday
over the coming months to extend the weekends, taking Mondays off to
work on the replastering. This was met with mild panic - "but how will
we ever manage without you, Miss Holloway". Which is very reassuring in
terms of job security in a quiet patch, but also a little scary...

Back to the trains - the more I come to rely on trains for transport
(and to understand their huge advantages) the more acutely I feel the
loss of the branch lines, slashed from the network in the 50s and 60s.

Sitting here, in a comfortable seat, with tea available, is time
regained. I can read, talk, sleep, write, daydream - and with the
addition of 21st century technology, watch films, listen to radio or
music or blog.

I get very little pleasure out of travelling by car. It's difficult to
do any of the above when you are on the verge of vomiting. My parents
used to joke that they couldn't drive more than 5 miles out of town
without holding their daughter out of the window to barf. It was of
course due to my weak stomach, rather than to the brown haze of Benson
and hedges which all cars boasted at that time in lieu of air con. Even
now I remember the gut-knotting tension that came over me every time a
parental hand reached over to activate the dashboard cigarette lighter,
the dread as it popped out again, fully armed,the disgusting hiss as
heated coil met tobacco, the desperate negotiation for another inch of
window to be wound down. When our infant locks were washed at the end
of week the first rinse water would run black. At the time it seemed
normal. Just dirt. Now I realise that we were all essentially kippered.

Obviously this is ancient history. But my stomach has never felt
entirely comfortable as a car passenger since, and even "that new car
smell" which seems to excite some people so much, triggers an unbearable
Pavlovian nausea