Great day out on Saturday: Celia and Andy picked us up early if not bright, and off we went to join the train at our semi-homophonous neighbouring town.
The new-build Thompson A1 Pacific pulled in on time leading a rake of 13 coaches, in one of which we proceeded to eat our way to Bath and back.
I’d forgotten how leisurely the departure is behind a steam locomotive: but it did give us a chance to admire the frosty countryside: we were provided with a cloth with which to wipe the condensation off the 1950s windows.
Interestingly, our neighbourhood sheep, well used to electric multiple units, were quite spooked by the steam locomotive, and fled from the trackside.
We hacked round the
South London suburbs and across the river, joining God’s Wonderful Railway somewhere near Willesden, where we had to pause for 20 minutes for the engine to take on a tender of water.
We’d forgotten how steam engines used to replenish their water tanks from supply troughs between the rails: since there is no call for such devices these days, we’d to stop once again on the way out, and twice also on the way back in the evening.
Interestingly enough, the water was supplied from fire engines.
Now, firemen in these parts are said to be great moonlighters, serving their shifts for the most part asleep at the fire station, then earning a second salary as painters and decorators, motor mechanics, roofers or what you will.
An allegation to which I wouldn't for a moment wish to lend credibility. (A good few serve as Magistrates, I’m bound to say, but that’s a different matter, absent remuneration…)
We speculated jokily on the mechanisms by which money might have changed hands for the refilling of a mainline steam engine.
Whatever, the saps-pomps kept us steamily on our way.
Bath was lovely. We had a few drops of rain, and it was damned cold: though we got some fine breaks of sunshine as we went round, we had to spend the last hour in department stores and coffee shops to keep the blood fluid. We were a bit late out of Bath, and I have an idea that the engine did a whisker over its permitted maximum of 75 mph on the way back east. Not a bad meal, with a half-bottle of M. Duboeuf's worst (yet drinkable) vin de table per diner. The Orient Express it ain't, I have to say, but it was a fun day out.
I think you can safely add a further 40 miles to the estimated distance reported in the last posting. We got up on Saturday morning to find an email saying that they’d tried to deliver my parcel on Friday evening (when we were in) and found us out (which we weren’t) and left a card (which was nowhere to be found), and suggesting that we call the courier (I left a text message on Sunday morning – no reply). Rang on Monday morning and left a message. Monday afternoon, door bell rang: a kid in a beat up Suzuki with his child in the front seat: parcel for Mr Bishop. ‘Thanks: got one for me, then?’. Quick rummage in the boot and up popped the item I’d ordered two weeks ago. Phew.
Oh, and as an aside, I've been trying to read Proust, admittedly in translation, which can't help. But sentences that last a whole page aren't my kind of reading for pleasure, and I found my mind wandering in a manner all too reminiscent of when I had to read a piece by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff back in undergraduate days.
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