Quiet day

Long day yesterday.  Though Worcester was delightful, and the cathedral in particular, I think that’s the last time I’ll pay a premium to spend eleven and a half hours in obsolete, cramped coaches.  By the time we got to Oxford on the way back I was ready for bed, but with a locomotive change and numerous delays as we wove our way round west and south London, it was another three hours before we got back, over half an hour late.  As I’ve mentioned before, the engine we thought we were getting was substituted at a late stage, and then the sub was subbed.  We learned as we were nearing home that substitute N°2 had a couple of days earlier come within an ace of going dis as well.  We finished our journey behind a diesel locomotive, leased from a Deutsche Bahn subsidiary, gawd ‘elp us.  Said locomotive is frequently rostered to haul the Royal train, we gather, so the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha connexion is plainly alive and well. 

Although the day was cold – and Tonbridge station, where we’d to wait for the delayed departure, is notoriously the coldest place on earth – we only got rained on between the car park and the station in the morning.  The walk into the city is unprepossessing for the first ten minutes or so, but after that it is a delight.  We were surprised how quiet the place was, although crossing the inner ring road, as we’d to do a few times, was not too easy.  After we’d enjoyed a walk from  the cathedral along the riverside, we hopped on a bus to the station.  Everywhere we went we met friendly greetings and banter, and it was surprising how many people asked us whether we’d come on the steam train. 

In the cathedral I stopped and chatted with a chap who was tuning a little three-stop continuo organ.  He’d been one of the builders of the newish quire organ, which I’m looking forward to hearing when I dig out the CD I bought.  He told me that the world of organ building has changed quite a bit since I last paid attention to it.  Willis and Harrison are largely victims of their complacency, having run, some might say, a comfortable duopoly for decades.  Walkers and Hills have gone to the wall, and Mander’s operation has shrunk considerably.  (Mander rebuilt the St Paul’s organ - not a moment too soon - in time for the silver Jubilee, and was responsible for the nice little organ on castors in St Anne’s & St Agnes’ in Gresham Street, near my first office.)  Not without a whiff of marketing, the fellow I chatted with was quick to sing the praises of Kenneth Tickell Ltd. 

Today I feel rather over-fed.  It’s not that often that I have two breakfasts (one of them a ‘full English’). A doorstep sandwich for lunch and then four courses at dinner time.  To their credit, the caterers on the train turned out a pretty good meal, but I’m rather well aware that yesterday’s rations included a fried breakfast, pastry, panna cotta and cheese.  We’re postponing today’s planned vegetarian splurge, however: two of the intended participants therein are under the weather.  Time for lunch nevertheless!