Waiting on platform five, where the 9.58 to
London Paddington is lurking, darkened and closed-off for the moment, a small group of us start
to tell our stories. One lady tells of how she got up at six to
get here from Barnstaple to catch any train whatsoever to London in order to
take the 2.15 Eurostar to see her dying mother in Paris.
Another is on the way to Argentina to
rejoin her husband who is on a contract out there. She’s been home to visit the
children but was terrified of missing her flight.
What amazing stories we all have to tell
about our lives! There are others with a less important rendezvous perhaps but
all of us taking that 9.58 are truly in need of that blessed train.
Once moving, the train glides slowly
through the flooded plain outside Exeter ... just like last year and we gaze
out at this now-familiar landscape and wonder about global warming, climate
change and whether this is to become the norm.
The guard is so kind. He reassures us that
all train tickets to and from London this week will be honoured no matter what
trains we take. There are more storms predicted for Thursday so no one knows
what will happen.
‘Just keep your eye out for the updates,’
he tells me. ‘On Friday, just get to Paddington whenever you can. We will run
hourly services to Exeter one way or another. We will get you home.’
Why is it so important for me to get home? Diane would continue to put me up.
We would continue to curl up together with her dog, Ajax, on the sofa-bed in
her living room to talk or watch TV in the evenings when I’m not doing comedy;
we would still cook supper together. I couldn’t ask for a better friend.
But I want to be home.
However, there
are adventures for me to have this coming week in London; places to go, people
to see. And I want to get to the National Portrait Gallery – one of my
favourite museums. I have to take a day’s Sabbath in the week and do my
Artist’s Date (from Julia Cameron’s The
Artist’s Way). Now I have worked out how to organize myself in London, I
must start to have some fun.
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