Thursday 30 June 2022

A matter of death and life (part two - life!)

I must say there is nothing quite like the comfort of a good hotel bed.  (Where do they get their pillows?  So perfectly plump and firm!)  The kind of bed where you should be able to slip under the fresh clean duvet, fall asleep instantly and have glorious dreams for the next eight hours….   But I didn’t.  I lay awake for ages.  So many thoughts, images, feelings were jostling for attention in my brain, refusing to form an orderly queue or to go away and come back in the morning.  And this was only the first night!

Earlier that day I’d boarded a sleek, new (and very exotic sounding) Azuma train and travelled 400 miles northward.  Having not been on a train these last two years the experience felt strangely new again.  I mean, even a visit to the onboard space age circular loo seemed a glamorous excursion.   All silver and symbols and sensory controls, I half expected to see the lovely Lieutenant Uhura waiting outside when I emerged. 

But the views from the train window were most definitely earthly and I loved the way the landscape changed from the flatlands of home to… ooh, hills!  And rocky outcrops!  Towns and cities I’ve never visited teased me with momentary flashes of their most striking assets.  The bridges spanning the Tyne…  Peterborough and Durham Cathedrals piercing the skyline…York Minster too.   Quirkier things as well, the curious ‘Mallard’ sign… 

And I’m pretty sure I let out an audible gasp at my first sight of the sea which, in spite of it being named the ‘East Coast Main Line’, still somehow took me by surprise.  It was like that feeling I had as a child en route to a seaside holiday, the excitement at turning a corner and suddenly seeing what seemed like a magical ocean at the edge of the world.  I know, I’m romanticising, it was a rather chilly looking steel-grey North Sea.  But still…

Eight hours after leaving home that morning, I was disembarking at Edinburgh Waverley Station – amazingly my very first trip over the border into Scotland - to be greeted by our lovely blog pal, Alyson.   It was great to see her familiar face; we had met up just once before in London and felt then as if we’d known each other for ages.  And that’s the beautiful thing about blogging, the way strangers can connect, get a sense of understanding and camaraderie, just through what we express, and how…  but more on that later.  As if I hadn’t been excited enough by the journey, there was so much yet to come – a few more people to meet, some for the first time, others to reconnect with, places to see,  music to hear (not just the bagpipes on the Royal Mile which take busking to a whole new level), tales to be shared, drinks to be consumed – naturally - and hugs (hugs at last!)  to be had…  A long-awaited bloggers’ ‘mini-meet’ had finally, appropriately, come together in this beautiful city. No wonder I didn’t sleep very well that night... my senses were most definitely working overtime.


More in part three.

14 comments:

  1. Ah! And a bit of XTC too. Lovely stuff.

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    1. Ah thanks - it already feels a bit of a distant dream, just breaking away completely from normal life for a few days. Senses working overtime sums it up!

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  2. I don't think I had appreciated just how much your senses had been working overtime by the time you even got off the train. Had to laugh at the image of Lieutenant Uhura standing guard outside the loo! Looking forward now to part 3.

    Sorry to hear your hotel bed didn't offer the slumber you needed that first night. I actually slept like a log, but then I did take my own quilt!

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    1. The train staff were lovely, with a great cross section of regional accents - Lt. Uhura would have fitted perfectly, I'm just imagining her now, but with a Geordie lilt!
      That first night was the hardest for getting to sleep though. My bed was so comfortable, normally it would have been bliss, but my brain just wouldn't shut up (or down). I'm glad you slept well, the quilt was obviously a very good idea...

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  3. Sounds like you had a much better train journey than The Swede!

    Looking forward to many more chapters of this account...

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    1. I do love a good train journey but yes, poor TS's experiences that Fri in the heatwave sound hellish.
      It's taken me a while just to get this part down so I don't think there will be too many more chapters, but writing a little certainly helps to keep the memories alive.

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  4. Lt Uhuru as a Geordie - brilliant! Beam me up pet.

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  5. Glad you had a great time. In my experience bloggers tend to be lovely people when you meet them in real life.

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    1. So good to know you've found that too - it really is a special thing.

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  6. I found the bed in my own hotel extremely comfortable too - or perhaps it's just that my bed at home is quite uncomfortable - a bit of both perhaps! It took me a long time to drift off that first night, but I do remember waking from a deep sleep during the wee small hours in a completely confused state, wondering where on Earth I was!

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    1. A comfortable bed and a tired body are a good combination but an overactive mind so often gets in the way, and I get that thing about the confusion. Hopefully you had a quiet room too. Mine was well away from any roads, so there was no noise, but oddly enough that was a bit unsettling in itself, I'm used to a stream of morning traffic and birdsong!

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  7. Ah, Blog-Con '22; it really did happen didn't it - I didn't just dream it? From the moment you guys walked into the pub I knew we'd have a great time. And to anyone who fancies it next year, then we'd love to see you...

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    1. It does feel increasingly like a (really good) dream... can hardly believe it was over a month ago now. And I was supposed to be writing a part 3 to elaborate a bit more, but life has got in the way again (I started it though, honest - just hope I can get another post in before Blog-Con '23...)

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