The end of it all

If last week I was enjoying the refreshing breeze that comes with a change in the air, then this week the wind is up and I’m at the mercy of something rather stronger. I’m leaving my job, my routines, my back and forth – the framework to my life as I know it. And this shedding of my workaday skin means there’s rather a lot to do. Leaving work, I’ve discovered, is a job in itself: the repeated announcements, the delving into one’s motivations to satisfy oneself and others, the form-filling, the exit interview, the return of company property. I’m running around settling scores and attempting to leave my slate as clean as clean can be.

And it’s dawning on me that I’m what’s commonly known as ‘demob happy’ – an expression I don’t think I’ve ever turned on myself before. But the fallout from all of this is, of course, that Girl on the 7.42 must cease to exist, and my weekly rendez-vous with this otherwise blank space is coming to an end. Because this time I’m stepping off the 7.42 for good.

And the reason for all of this? It seems to boil down to the following: it’s time I lived in Paris; it’s time I was French for a while; and it’s time my all-too-English son was given the chance to turn into the French child he might, in another existence, have been. (And perhaps a little ambient sophistication will rub off on me and make my Parisian mother proud.)

And what of the husband? He’s staying behind to hold the fort and hold onto his job. But he’s already booked the ferry tickets to make absolutely sure that we do return home at the end of it all.

Abba ringing in my ears

I look just like everyone else – at last. I’m plugged in and I have cables dangling from my ears. It’s taken me a while (it must be at least six months that I’ve had the technology tucked away in my bag) but now that I’ve arrived I see exactly what all the fuss is about.

All of a sudden, and with little effort on my part, my life has its very own soundtrack. And I’ve turned the most prosaic of moments into the most inspiring and the most aspirational. And, since I’m not sophisticated in my musical tastes and haven’t moved on much since my teenage years, I can inject something very upbeat into every moment of my progress. In fact, just existing can be stirring stuff.

Which I’ve realised is a godsend on a morning like today, when the usual fluency of my journey stutters to a halt and our usually loyal 7.42 abandons us to the wilds of Cooksbridge, a station I’ve only ever experienced once-removed through the medium of a train window. (And in fact it’s not bad at all – the sun shines here, everyone seems happy enough, there’s a certain rhythm to the place, a kind of harmony in the air, and the Downs provide the most lovely backdrop. Yes, it’s not bad at all.)

So I think that finally I’m really getting the hang of this commuting business. It’s a question of isolating oneself from one’s environment, taking the occasional unscheduled stopover in one’s stride … and perhaps catching a glimpse of other possibilities.

Because actually next week is my last in this guise, and I can feel a change in the air. I thought I’d be aboard this train for a good few years to come, but, as it happens, I’ve decided to shake things up a little. I’m off to Paris to live a new life for a while. Yes, I can do anything – especially with Abba ringing in my ears.

Like hell

I have developed, in the last two years of my life, a new vision of hell in which I set off from home without my reading glasses. Until two years ago there were other kinds of hell to do with forgetting the essentials, but this is something else entirely. That’s the kind of age I’ve reached.

So just at the time of my life when I feel a mighty urge to simplification, the structure of life becomes doubly complicated. Faulty eyes are nothing new to me (I’m used to the glasses/contact lenses dichotomy), but negotiating that tricky path between the near and far now takes up much of my attention. My multitasking prowess is shot to pieces, and I’m either here, seriously concentrating on the task at hand, or I’m there, taking in the bigger picture. But I’m never both.

And on the train, apart from the odd glance out of the window as I come up for air and get my bearings, the task at hand is where my focus lies. I know that I’m not the first to avail myself of such opportunities for concentration: Stella Gibbons wrote the whole of Cold Comfort Farm on the move, apparently, and of course we have the very recent (and very local) example of Oliver Gozzard and his Commuter’s Tale. My efforts are nowhere near as concerted, but I’m head down, I’m busy, and I couldn’t bear to be anything else.

And if those reading glasses get left behind, then all I can do is sit and stare and wonder: how do all you others manage who let those endless hours slip away unused? Are you really doing nothing? That seems to me like hell.

I really can't thank Gatwick enough

I’m afforded a particular pleasure by the fact that the 7.42 doesn’t stop at Gatwick. I have nothing against Gatwick per se, but it’s the baggage it pulls along in its wake that I have an issue with. And on the odd occasion that I do avail myself of the services of a Southern train that actually serves a Gatwick purpose (unlike the 7.42 which is a Gatwick Express by livery alone), I struggle with the repercussions. It’s like finding yourself in the middle of a fruit & veg market when all you were after was milk from the corner shop. And, if I’m honest, it’s an affront to the well-oiled wheels of commuterdom.

It’s not that we regulars don’t come with our own baggage, but we wield this with grace and expertise – and of course we’re unlikely to have the contents of our wardrobe with us. In my case, I have one bag that has been specifically chosen for its practical qualities and which sits squarely on my knee, providing a kind of extension to the table. And then there’s my neat little rucksack which sits alert and upright at my feet. And of course the rest of my – emotional – baggage I keep to myself. And, unlike those Gatwick passengers, I refrain from showing interest in what’s around me.

But, just sometimes, the tables are turned, and I board a train which is a Gatwick Express through and through; a train whose primary purpose is to serve those leaving the country, but which, in its new extended format, is on its way to Brighton and will drop me at Haywards Heath. And then the pleasure of the Gatwick connection is all mine. We speed out of London with barely a glance at East Croydon, and it’s this ability to make so light of the suburbs – something Southern could never do – for which, if I’m honest, I really can’t thank Gatwick enough.

A very good thing

It’s fair to say that I’m not the most sociable of commuters, but there’s one moment on every journey when it’s hard to ignore my fellow human beings completely. It is, of course, the moment of boarding, that complex dance of politeness and single-mindedness which forms part of the morning ritual. Again and again we tread the very fine line between appearing chivalrous and standing one’s ground, though Lewes is nothing like I imagine the battleground of Haywards Heath to be or – heaven forbid – East Croydon, where the very possibility of a seat is at stake. But if you’ve become, like I have, attached to the idea of your very own window with unrestricted view, things can get just a little bit tense.

What a relief, then, to be seated and settled, with that window seat, perfect view and even an empty seat beside you. But along with Haywards Heath comes another predicament: whether to appear as normal and unobtrusive as possible, or whether to accentuate one’s bulk and one’s idiosyncrasies? The possibility of that empty seat remaining so all the way to East Croydon is only a faint one, but I engage in fervent hope every time.

I know, of course, that chivalry and normality should be encouraged. But I also know that commuting has never brought out the beautiful or the altruistic in us humans, and what we’d really like is probably a whole carriage to ourselves. Which is why half-term is such a welcome fixture in the calendar. Just now a double seat all the way to London Bridge is not completely out of the question. There are far fewer human beings around, and – from where I’m sitting – that seems, quite simply, like a very good thing.

And that's the line I'm sticking to

Apparently, spring is coming, but I have my doubts. As far as I can see, it’s all a case of very wishful thinking.

The crocuses and snowdrops might be opening, but aren’t they only as aspirational as we are? And the birds might be singing a little more than they were when we had all that snow, but – again – isn’t this part and parcel of just willing things along? What really nails it for me, though, is that I’m still wearing all manner of wool and fleece and Gore-Tex. And while admittedly I’m the sort of person who still wears a scarf well into May, right now I need a lot more than just a scarf.

And what does wishful thinking do for us anyway? Far better to immerse onself in the pleasures of a cold environment. A newish electric blanket (dual control, extra foot warmth, and automatic switch-off so that I’m not responsible for my own safety) might have something to do with this very conservative stance on my part, as might a rather pleasing woodburning stove, and the fact that I recently spent a good three weeks along with the sun on the other side of the world. Oh, and the fact that Southern are keeping its trains nice and toasty right now.

But, whatever my ulterior motives for embracing the status quo, spring is really not just around the corner. I’m going to hunker down for a while longer and then emerge, perhaps without winter coat but still with scarf, only once everyone else is considering the transition to shorts and sandals (a stage of development that I’ve never quite reached). Until then, the hatches are very much battened down, it’s not yet spring, and that’s the line I’m sticking to.

The main thing

There was something eerily quiet about platform two when I arrived there a week last Tuesday – as if I’d appeared an hour too early and the world wasn’t quite ready to receive me in its normal, welcoming fashion. Over a thousand commuting days to my name, and this had never happened before. Change is such a shocking thing when it arrives in the context of stability.

What was Vic thinking? Of course it might just have been his traditional escape to Switzerland, but surely his team would have been left behind to hold the fort? And how were all my fellow travellers coping with this unexpected disruption?

A day later, and again I came down the stairs to be greeted by a strange emptiness. But this time I took a closer look: what I had naturally assumed was a poem adorning the door of the Runaway was actually a notice announcing, in plain, prosaic English, that redecoration was underway.

Now, a week on, and everything looks very much the same, as does Vic. Once again, the world receives me in its normal, welcoming fashion, and, once again, I get my tea when and how I like it. Which is, after all, the main thing.

I miss my name

Anonymity isn’t exactly a natural state of affairs, and sometimes I do wonder what exactly a pseudonym is for. Of course as Girl on the 7.42 I’m part of a long, occasionally literary tradition – Georges Sand, Belle du jour, Stig – but, come to think of it, didn’t they all have something to hide, something risqué or at least something that intrigued? My anonymity, on the other hand, is never going to attract attention.

And my own name – something I’ve never been particularly attached to – has over the last few months finally found its raison d’être, precisely because I’d decided to do without it for a while. Granted, when it’s 7.42 in the morning on platform 2, and when I’m seeking nothing but a little bit of personal space and a fast train to London, the dark cloak of anonymity suits me perfectly, but as the day wears on, and as the days have turned into weeks and months, I’ve grown to miss the usefulness, the shortcut to identity that a name provides.

It gives people a handle on you (or me in this case), and now I see it for what it is: a catch-all for whatever I’m up to and whatever trail I might leave in my wake. Which if all goes smoothly, and if I continue to be the law-abiding citizen that I can’t help but be, could be a handy thing. In other words, I miss my name.


Juliette Mitchell

A lot more to it than that

Two weeks ago I was still very much on holiday. But being on holiday, I’ve been reminded, is nothing like talking about that same holiday once you’re back. And by last week I’d succeeded in reducing the whole three weeks of it into little more than a few well-chosen adjectives and an interesting creature or two.

Meanwhile I’ve been catapulted back into the relentless swing of ordinary life, and there’s been, in addition, the pressing need to shop, cook and generally tend to myself once more – a shock after being in charge of nothing more than a kettle and an automatic hire car for a whole three weeks. So the very different challenges of life at home (and work) have taken over, and now I’m in grave danger of allowing almost all that gallivanting to recede into the long ago and the far away.

Perhaps it’s just that interesting experiences don’t travel particularly well and are best left where they are, or perhaps it’s me, not the experiences, that are the problem. Whichever one it is, I’m struggling to communicate. There are photographs, of course, but even I know that showing a hundred photographs is not the way to present one’s holiday to someone showing polite and passing interest.

Holidays and normal life, I now conclude, just don’t really mix. I have no problem with that, but it really does amaze me that the best I can do now that I’m back is tell you about the dolphins and the whale. There was a lot more to it than that.

Just around the corner

New Year’s resolutions have never really been my thing, but a resolution at any other time of year definitely is. I’m always up for anything that makes my life more efficient, more minimal, more succinct (in the sense of clear and precise, rather than short), and I like the idea of the impetus for this arriving at random times of year. So my most recent resolution – to be that little bit more efficient in my dealings with the world – came into effect at some point in October, and is still very much with me.

But if the leap between one year and the next galvanises something in us humans, then all the better. And I like the idea of everyone around me resolving en masse to become in some way improved. Perhaps the knock-on-effects will reach us fellow, but less annually resolved, humans – and perhaps these will then be enough to sustain us all.

In fact, a case in point and one that had a particularly positive impact on my own life: if it hadn’t been for the formal prompt of a New Year approaching, my now husband might still be considering whether to get in touch. We first came across one another in 2002, but it was a New Year’s resolution on 31st December 2004 that resulted in the email I got in early February 2005 (so even once the resolution was made he wasn’t quick off the mark).

Anyway, now that 1^st January is a fading memory and the rest of you are hanging on to your resolutions for dear life, and now that February isn’t far off and the likes of my husband are just resolving at last to put their resolutions into practice, I’m in the happy position of wondering when the next urge for change might decide to creep up on me. Freed from the confines of the Gregorian calendar, the happy prospect of improvement (in any shape or form apart from that of the aforementioned husband) is always just around the corner.

How things used to be

It’s the Tuesday before Christmas, and we’ve arrived at London Bridge just a few minutes late. Which as our conductor has kindly pointed out is rather good in the current icy circumstances. And indeed it is. It’s been a good journey: a double seat all the way, my companions suitably silent, my carriage warm. And, as my last 7.42 of the year, a good way to end.

As you can see, then, my grumpiness has passed and I’m in tune once again with my surroundings. Even a longer than usual delay on my way to London would have been easy to cope with, and perspective – that curer of some ills and not of others – would have done its work. Because now I have other things to worry about: namely, a flight to New Zealand tomorrow (my first flight in years, actually) which, from my point in time, looks distinctly dodgy.

From your point in time, of course, this will all be history, and my worries will be last year’s problems. My cry for help will be purely rhetorical, and any sympathy I do elicit will be obsolete (but thank you anyway).

Such a clashing of one point in time against another is not a state of affairs we have to get our heads around very often any more. It’s a reminder, for me at least, of another century and a time of real letters: questions asked and forgotten before the answers had a time to form, and worries aired and then long gone by the time commiseration arrives. So perhaps consider this column just a remnant of last year’s postbag and an interesting reminder of how things used to be.

Well and truly grumpy

I have no problem with a heap of snow or an iced-up railway line. In fact, I’m very happy for both those things to cause a little disruption and for us all to be bounced out of our routines for the duration. But I’m just not sure whether, since this little reminder of the mighty elements, it’s my equilibrium that’s been lost or Southern’s.

Last night a broken-down train – not ours – kept us waiting somewhere on the threshold of Lewes. The night before, two drivers failed to show up on time, which meant hearing about their progress across London and along from Brighton while waiting at Victoria and Haywards Heath respectively. And the number of red signals! I don’t think I’ve ever met so many.

And – another sign of disequilibrium – this week half the carriages on the 7.42 are snug and warm while the other half are downright cold. Of course we old-hands are trained to seek out the warm spots, but what about those who simply get on the first carriage they see?

So I’ve decided to call a halt to this practice of clutching at every benefit of every doubt. And yesterday, when I’d been deposited in Lewes at last, the thought of making my way up the hill and to the top end of town (usually just a part of the landscape of the day) presented itself as just one more slight to be borne. I treated myself to a taxi instead. And sitting here now – with the drafts and the cold just one carriage away; on schedule but not knowing whether an errant driver is lying in wait round the very next corner; making progress but living in fear of the next red signal – not even crossing the Balcombe Viaduct is enough to lift my spirits. So now you know: I’m well and truly grumpy.

Where were they when I needed them?

The 7.42 has been a part of my life for a good few years, and so the same must be true of whichever train awaits me at platform 6 of London Bridge to take me from there to my final destination. Those trains come thick and fast, thank god, and there’s not much to tell them apart, so I feel as if I’m familiar with each of them from every angle (inside and out) and that I know their rhythms, their sighs, their rumbles, and their general bearing. And of course I know their colours, too.

So why, this morning, did I walk blindly, deafly and unthinkingly onto a blue train streaked with purple? Why was I one of the only ones among my platform companions to get on? And why did I sit relatively calmly while it wheezed its way along the tracks, pausing for breath every few moments? And why did I not notice that the buildings outside the window were just slightly unfamiliar?

It was our arrival at a station called, I think, City Thameslink that brought me, quite literally, to my senses and brought home to me the divergent path my life had taken. Put quite simply, I was in one place, and my life was in another. So I experienced the full force of a wake-up-call and a shock to the system, both of which were particularly unforgiving in the circumstances – this was one of the few days in the year when my presence was very much required earlier rather than later, and being absent wasn't an option.

Happily, I did make it to my destination on time (where something like 100 students – of the non riotous kind – were waiting for me), so I’ve regained both my composure and my life. But now I'm keeping a close eye on the trains and ­– even more so – on my senses. Where were they when I needed them?

I'm working on it

I’ve been away for a week, and it was a good week in almost every respect – but, gosh, it’s good to be back and treading the well-worn path of my daily life. Of course just over a week ago that’s exactly what I was desperate to escape, the well-worn path having become like a muddy rut and the various obligations of my day standing in the way like little stumbling blocks.

But perhaps this holiday was a little ambitious with nine nights spread over six different beds. There was the brief respite of one bed for four nights in Devon, courtesy of the in-laws, but the rest was all geographical non sequiturs and out-of-the-way stopovers (Cambridge for one reason, Suffolk for another).

So it was an unlikely holiday and itinerary in one sense, though it did take us to see the people we wanted to see. But now that I’m back, normal life seems like a particularly pleasurable and easy thing to lead, and even the to-ing and fro-ing to London seems like a gentle stroll. Better still, those ruts have turned back to well-honed pathways and those little stumbling blocks, seen in this new and better light, are nothing more than the warp and weave of normality. In short, I’m wallowing in predictability, familiarity and the finely tuned infrastructure of my very own life.

So the holiday has done its job and spewed me back into Lewes recharged, refreshed and content. The problem is, it’s less than four weeks to the next holiday, and I’m not sure I’ll be ready in time. But I’m working on it.

Amongst the French

To my mind, ‘genre’ is one of the hardest words to say in the English language. It has only five letters, but they’re an unfortunate combination. It’s the ‘nre’ that really trips me up. Actually, I struggle with any word that’s descended from the French. Put me in a cheese shop, and ask me to ask for Brie, and I’m stumped. What to do with the ‘r’? Give it a roll, or not?

The problem is not that I can’t cope with that French ‘r’, but that I can. I’ve got a French mother, and a history of ordering Brie in French cheese shops as well as English ones, so it’s not something that I can just ignore. By the time I’ve mentally juggled with the alternatives, all spontaneity is gone and the process has become something to be got through.

So it’s not English pronunciation that’s a problem, nor French, but the very fine cusp between them. My mixed allegiances aren’t usually a problem – after all, the English Channel is a clear of sign of what’s what – and usually when I’m out and about in the streets of Lewes I’m able to keep my French ‘r’s to myself. But then Brie or some other delicacy will rear its awkward, disorientating head and send me stumbling upon that awkward cusp and into this very particular quandary.

And it looks as if my (still small) son is headed the same way. On a recent trip to France, he happened to insert a very French ‘r’ into none other than the very English exclamation ‘crumbs’. And that was after only three days amongst the French.

A step too far

One of the best signs I’ve ever seen was one that told me that I was now entering the wilderness – as if this didn’t somehow negate the effect or the reality. We gathered our wits, braced ourselves, and stepped beyond the sign.

Of course Britain doesn’t even pretend to have such a thing as wilderness – this was in New Zealand – and I think the only other time I’ve experienced wilderness (this time for real and identifiable by the very fact that it was unlabelled) was in North America. And on this occasion, because I genuinely didn’t know where I was, civilisation suddenly became the one thing I truly cared about. I wanted evidence of it in any shape or form – a road, a hut, a telegraph pole; in fact, anything to show that humans had been here before.

I’m sure the likes of Scott and Cook would have got over the fear of being in uncharted territory pretty quickly, but then this was their business. For me (and I doubt I’m alone in this), there’s something comforting about being in the company of others, happily positioned somewhere in a long line of human beings – who happen to be far enough away that they neither get in the way nor obscure the view.

So I’m all for following in the footsteps of others, at least metaphorically. But labelling wilderness is surely going a step too far.

A system I can relate to

It seems unlikely that I’ll ever come to know my left and right. When I was a mere slip of a thing and still of impressionable age, my mother tried hard to drum some sort of awareness of these alien coordinates into me. She’d shout instructions – touch your right foot; your left leg; your right ear – and I would attempt to respond correctly: a sort of ‘Simon says’ scenario, then, without the complication of Simon.

But these exercises, while making me (and, most importantly, my mother) feel that I was working on the problem, did little to improve matters. And so I’ve gone through life with what feels to me like an innate inability to differentiate between the spaces to either side of me. It hasn’t been too much of a burden, and I’ve found ways of working round the problem. Most usefully, a quick look down at my hands (as long as it’s not too dark and I’m ungloved) reveals a scar which I’ve been told denotes my right. The scar was caused by an exploding Kenwood food mixer, and it’s since become an unexpectedly functional distinguishing feature.

So what’s my problem with left and right, apart from the fact that I can’t tell them apart? It’s their fickleness I don’t like. Turn your back on them for an instant, and they’ve swapped places. Bring an interlocutor into the equation, and heaven knows whose left and right you’re talking about. To me, the whole concept of left and right has always seemed just slightly flawed.

North, south, east and west, on the other hand, are delightful and far less indecisive guides. The mere mention of them is so much more romantic, and their territory so much more far-reaching. Bring out the compass, and all of a sudden you’re in the presence of an invisible but constant force that overrides any kind of twisting, turning, self-centred confusion. Now there’s a system I can relate to.

No sense at all

I woke this morning with a fierce desire to talk through the dream I’d just emerged from. Now, one of the things I like most about my husband is that he doesn’t feel the need to share his dreams. Or, rather he has always abided by my rule that we don’t, on any pretext, share dreams. So this morning I kept to the rules and said nothing.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t wish my own night-time ramblings on anybody, least of all the person I wake up next to. Other people’s dreams, even your partner’s, have little narrative interest. No beginnings, no middles, no ends – and therefore no point. And a narrative arc is surely something we look for in most things, with even the most mundane of days providing us with an arc of sorts: an unsteady beginning, the regular staging posts of breakfast, lunch and dinner, the gradual descent towards the night.

Besides, with my discovery of The West Wing a couple of years ago, I’ve come to realise that the perfect way to bring my own daily arc to a close is escaping into someone else’s well-wrought narrative (I’m a little late in coming to this, I know). But ever since I watched my way to the end of the series – five or so years late and drip-fed by DVD – I’ve been hankering for something to fill that post-dinner, post-chores slot. I’ve tried alternatives, but so far nothing has quite provided what I need (and I found The Wire almost impossible to follow).

So my own narrative arc is slightly lacking right now. Which makes it, I think, even more important that I don’t muddy that crucial (and already unsteady) start to the day by airing my dreams, however urgent they might seem. In the dead of the night, such delusions might hold my attention, but in the light of day they would, I’m sure, make no sense at all.

Something else entirely

There are some things which the mind should never get involved in. Driving is one. Passwords are another.

Ah, passwords. Those burdensome accessories of modern life. They rattle around in the brain, become entangled, and, with every leap in technical maturity, they multiply. And just when you think you’ve got them straight, you’re called upon to execute a change of tack or swap a digit, just to keep those hackers at bay and give a sheen of newness. Until recently, this tyranny of ‘systems’ had become one of the more stressful aspects of my professional life. It was enough to paralyse even the most efficient and well-trained mind.

But – and for me this was my hallelujah moment – the remembering of passwords should actually be the most basic, and most bodily, function: the latest in a long evolutionary thread of Pavlovian responses, the fingers reacting – without recourse to the brain – to a particular screen with exactly the right string of letters and digits. So, it’s not unlike opening your mouth when you have something to say (something which, inexplicably, I once forgot to do); or closing your eyes before you go to sleep. The key is entering those password situations calmly and unthinkingly, and leaving the eyes and fingers to do the work.

As for driving, the separation of mind and body is something, which, if you have any aptitude at all, you’ll grasp from the very start. But if you’ve never quite grown out of thinking deeply about which one’s the brake pedal and which the accelerator, it might be best to find other ways of getting around. Passwords are, for obvious reasons, your own business, but driving is something else entirely.

New heights of satisfaction

I’ve always been partial to a little minimalism. In fact, of all the ‘isms’, this is probably the one I feel most strongly about. And, despite being prey to the usual clutterings and accumulations that tend to accompany one through existence, I’m always on the look-out for ways to surround myself with less.

Packing to go away, then, is a particular pleasure and the perfect opportunity to condense my life down to just a bag or two. In my unencumbered youth (of not so long ago), I developed a habit of cycling alone round various countries – Denmark, Finland, Ireland – with hardly a square inch of bag space that hadn’t been premeditated and carefully allotted. And, whatever I took with me, I used – another satisfaction of this particular school of thought.

But I realised, even then, that a two-week cycling trip isn’t exactly an accurate reflection of the world, and I was generally happy to return to permanence, unpack my scant belongings and get back to normality and all the accoutrements that come with it. The pursuit of a minimalist existence continued, of course, but there were more support systems – and things – in place. Indeed, as a friend once said to me, it was perfectly possible to be minimalist if you had the support of those around you. And, as it happened, this particular friend was always delighted to offer any assistance (which meant back-up supplies and a good deal less minimalism on his part).

A few years down the line, and ‘things’ still aren’t really my thing. But anyone paying close attention will know I’ve recently been getting to grips with a very small machine, and I do believe that this particular acquisition is the closest I’ve come to achieving my aim. It’s in its element when impersonating other things: a telephone (of course), an alarm clock, a map, a torch, a compass... In short, it’s trying to usurp the places of all those many things I’ve been unable to separate myself from until now. It might just be time to get back on the bike and scale new heights of satisfaction.

Quite enough for me

I’d never really noticed agricultural machinery until I was in France this summer. And the reason for this change in perspective? The fact that I had an almost-four-year-old as my guide. But it’s one of those interesting phenomena in life that once something has been brought to your attention, it’ll confront you at every opportunity. So where previously my eye would have been drawn to the contours of the hillside or perhaps to a steeple rising above the trees, now it was drawn – inexorably, it seemed – to the small block of colour working its way slowly across the field.

It’s just the same with certain words. You live in ignorance of them for years, and then one day a new one pops up on your radar – and never quite leaves it. Take the word ‘atavistic’, for example. I’d managed very well without it until I was approaching early adulthood, and then one day I came across it, stopped and thought about it, looked it up (in a dictionary, as one used to do), and life has been just slightly different ever since. In fact, for a while after that first moment of discovery, that word seemed to follow me everywhere. It still pops up regularly in my line of sight.

And how had I never noticed that at a certain time of year those agricultural machines are everywhere, bound up as they are with the changing seasons and all that? I really don’t know, but, now that my eyes have been alerted, I’m taking a brand-new pleasure in how very simple and constant the commercial world of agricultural machinery seems to be. And, even better, it’s just the same whether you’re this side of the channel or that one, which means I came back from France to discover that my new-found knowledge was as applicable here as it was there. Here, too, the fields were full of those little blocks of colour, and here, too, red meant one manufacturer and green meant another.

Of course I might be wrong, and perhaps there’s a lot more to it than that – but that’s the thing, you see. Until you disillusion me, and until you introduce a whole new set of values into the equation, it’ll be as if those values don’t exist. And then once you (or the almost-four-year-old) have explained to me that, actually, agricultural machinery is as complex and subtle and nuanced and aesthetically influenced as any modern industry, I’ll wonder how I’d never noticed these things before. But, until then, those little blocks of colour will be quite enough for me.

I can't deny that I'm delighted

A little while ago, at this very spot, I aired my feelings about a certain typo. But I like to think that I’ve broadened my perspective since then and become altogether more accepting. After all, ‘human error’ wasn’t coined as a result of just one mistake-prone individual, and this little phrase has bestowed upon us all (thanks to our privileged position within it) a very welcome margin of error in which to operate. And combine this leeway with the academic nature of the written word, and you have a kind of metaphorical playground where there’s – usually – no harm done and little fear of serious reprisal.

Step beyond that sheet of paper or computer screen, and the consequences aren’t always quite so academic, of course. A muddling of the stations Bruxelles-Midi and Bruxelles-Central on my part (and that of my companions – I wasn’t entirely to blame) meant that we recently found ourselves alighting from one train and looking in vain for another. The spectre of a series of ghastly repercussions loomed, but, thankfully, we realised our mistake, executed a quick turn-around, hotfooted it back to the platform and soon made good the error of our ways. It was the real-life equivalent of the ‘undo’ button in action, and in no time at all we were on our way to London aboard the Eurostar. Phew. Even I have to admit to having experienced an adrenalin rush far more powerful than that which follows an inappropriate apostrophe put right.

But to return to that immaterial typo which set me upon this train of thought in the first place: it was a missing ‘a’, notable for its recurring absence on the scrolling announcements of the 7.42 out of Lewes. I had let my thoughts be known, moved on and began the process of acquiring that broader sense of perspective of which I’ve spoken. But one Tuesday morning my eye was snagged by the brand-new presence of that formerly errant letter – now reinstated. I’m not claiming credit for this development, and I’m aware that forces far more powerful (and far less academic) than my idle ramblings are at work in this world, but – whoever or whatever those forces are – I can’t deny that I’m delighted.

Such things don't always come naturally

I’ve just heard about someone – a twenty-year-old university student, actually – who didn’t know how to use a paperclip. And so it dawned on me not only that a paperclip might be a generational thing, but also that a paperclip actually ‘works’ in some way (or, if in the hands of the wrong generation, doesn’t).

And this alarming anecdote of twenty-first-century life – and accompanying minor epiphany – came to me soon after I’d been pondering the fact that these days, just when you need a paperclip, there’s none to be found. The recesses of any respectable desk drawer used to be teeming with the things, but now that I found myself reaching for one (I confess that my intentions were not entirely modern – I was posting a cheque), those recesses were empty. Had the paperclip’s obsolescence come too soon, before our need was gone but after we’d finished restocking, and all this time supplies had been running dangerously low? Whether or not this was a correct interpretation of the situation, it was obviously time to improvise (and to think about how if the paperclip hadn’t been invented it would be time to do so).

So paperclips should definitely exist, I feel, and it should be incumbent upon twenty-year-old university students to be versed in their workings. By the same token, I’ve been grappling with the complexities of an altogether newer contraption, and there’s been a great deal incumbent upon me since I took ownership of it. For the truly interesting thing about this new iPhone of mine is this: its workings are apparently intuitive, but I’m having to learn them. As I now know, such things don’t always come naturally.

Issues of mine

We don’t often have bananas in our house these days. They’re just too fickle a proposition: either too yellow and too firm, or too black and too soft. Obviously somewhere inbetween was the perfect moment, but it must have been when we were out. So there they’d lie (which might, I suppose, be the problem – I see sensible people hang them up these days) in our fruit bowl, until they become an insult – and, more importantly, a danger – to the fruit around them. Then they’d be discreetly transferred across to the tub of perishables destined for the compost. And then a few days later out they’d go, to continue their miserable life-cycle out of doors and out of sight and mind.

I struggle with other food, too, but nothing’s quite as tricky as a banana. And, in fact, nothing on the domestic front is quite as tricky as the kitchen. Washing seems to come naturally enough, and tidying and cleaning are just about doable – and can always wait – but the constant demands of the stomach on the one hand and food on the other still catch me out.

It’s been, I imagine, half a lifetime or so of grappling with the problem. But there are other things which have preoccupied me just as much and which, happily, have now been mastered. In the very best cases, it’s been but a slight adjustment: the toaster shifting sideways and suddenly finding its rightful resting place, the new kitchen roll holder performing its function admirably… Even after many years of life, then, I still have within my grasp the pleasure of bettering what’s gone before.

And thank god life contains enough complexity that there’ll always be room for such improvement, and unpredictable enough that our own expiry dates don’t announce themselves ahead of time. It all gives me hope that there’s still a good chance of a breakthrough in those other kitchen issues of mine.

Creature of habit

It might just be a harking back to schooldays – or even earlier – but, to all intents and purposes, I have two pairs of shoes: an outdoor pair and an indoor pair. But today, a special day for reasons I won’t go into, I remembered another pair of shoes. I dusted them down and put them on.

And immediately I began to wonder what it must be like to have different shoes for different days, to be one of those women who love shoes for themselves (the shoeness of them, I mean) rather than as functional things. How their feet must struggle with the relentless unfamiliarity which regularly assaults them.

But my thinking was interrupted – driven off course even – by the need to attend to where this couple of impostors were taking me and by my attempts to educate them in my ways and routines. Until it dawned on me: this was perhaps the point. With every strange pair of shoes comes easy reinvention and a chance to refresh the so-called daily grind.

Perhaps I should don this alien pair on a more regular basis, I thought to myself, clutching at the idea of a carefree, unpredictable me. Damn. That would defeat my purpose. It seems I’ll always be a creature of habit.

Not a bank holiday in sight

The opening and closing of banks rarely impinges on my line of sight these days, but I do like bank holidays – those rare Mondays that are happily out of step with the passing of time and thereby unite us in a communal, civic kind of a way. Oh, except of course for our parking wardens, who go about wrongfooting anyone who assumes Sunday rules still apply. Humph.

But, parking wardens and their awkward rules apart, for those of us who struggle to find even a chink of time between the opposing tugs of flighty weekends and demanding weeks, here – at last – is a day that is mercifully free of the usual strains and agendas. And what greater satisfaction on a day such as this than to forgo ambition and any remotely long-lasting achievement, and turn instead to righting the creeping imbalance that is waiting to topple us right here at home.

Which means, of course, a trip to Ham Lane with a car full of cardboard followed by a trip to Waitrose to restock. Just briefly everything is right with the world. It’s catharsis and satiation all at once. And it’s both domestic duty and civic duty fulfilled. Before the spread starts again with not a bank holiday in sight.

There could be more

I may be wedded to the 7.42 in more ways than one, but there’s always the possibility that I might reassert my independence by deciding – on a whim – on a later train. And so it was this morning that I changed my rhythms, eschewed the 7.42 and boarded the 7.55. And how enlightening this proved to be. Between getting up and out of the door – usually a highly calibrated sliver or time – I mused on the minutes at my disposal, and how different life could be. It was a useful reminder that the path I take through my days is just one of many possibilities.

And perhaps my delinquent morning was a good way of clawing back a little control and evading the hold that Southern has over us all. For with every tweak of a number – probably decided on, like so much these days, by the flick of an algorithm – Southern reaffirms its presence, and we find ourselves shifting our rhythms to its own. But I’ve been lucky with the 7.42. So far it’s been steadfast enough, and we’ve suited each other well.

Now, though, my capricious morning has given me a taste for freedom, and perhaps, I realise, the odd departure from my usual comings and goings – my usual themes, my usual parameters – is no bad thing. There could be more.

Boundaries are breached

I’ve always been happy to admit that I’m suited to office life. And the train out of Lewes first thing in the morning is not dissimilar. We’re all in it together, but actually we’d like nothing more than to be left alone. Sure, we can nod and greet and exchange a few undemanding words if we happen to be behind one another in the Runaway queue. But once the train pulls in, the barricades of our respective minds are up and standing firm.

Our silence is neither unfriendly nor disrespectful, then, but just an acknowledgement of a camaraderie that doesn’t need to be oiled by talk of any kind. And perhaps this is a reason why I’ve adapted to the early-morning commute as easily as I did to a desk-bound existence. It’s the same gentle sociability with quietness positively encouraged.

But occasionally I’ve found a clique forming around me on the station platform, through nothing more calculated than the fact that each of us has made a habit of sitting in a particular carriage on a particular train. And this is fine by me, but if the companionship this engenders has the audacity to turn to banter, then I’m off to relocate to another, more appealing carriage. Until that one, too, has ideas above its station and boundaries are breached.

Real life

A car, these days, seems to be an endlessly adjustable thing: all buttons, and knobs and levers. But once you’re done with tweaking, life is sorted.

With a train seat, though, you’re never quite sorted. Firstly, there’s not nearly enough scope for adjustment, and, secondly, there are just too many unknowns, too many outside influences – in short, too much real life – for any kind of comfortable plateau ever to be reached. It’s a life of compromise in which the luxury of your own seat is just a euphemism for a temporary and unstable resting place.

Which is, I suppose, why so many of us like the car so very much. But even with a car there’s the possibility that you might be sharing the driver’s seat with a companion of different dimensions. And then what happens to those carefully orchestrated settings? It’ll be endless tussles with the mirror and jolting of the seat – those outward clues of a life lived in the endless sway of give and take.

Unless, of course, you choose to partner up with someone whose measurements match yours almost exactly. This is just what I did – a canny move, I’d say, and one which means we can each slip in and out of the driver’s seat (and in and out of each other’s shoes) with no thought for who was there last. It’s an existence of ease and simplicity on the one hand, but – on the other – perhaps not one that’s prepared me particularly well for that one-size-fits-all, rough-and-ready template of real life.

Could someone fix it?

A rockfall on the line between London and Lewes isn’t your usual reason for arriving home late, but that was last week’s explanation, and that’s the great thing about modern passenger directives – they really do provide the realism with which to imbue your excuses. So information, even too much of it, is a handy thing when things go wrong.

When things go right, though, the less said the better. The commentary accompanying our progress could be worse – at least it’s only an audio, not an audio-visual, hell – but just imagine that little piece of silence which might exist, for example, if Cooksbridge and Plumpton were left to shoulder responsibility for their own shortcomings.

At least with a human at the microphone, we get inflection, variation and a filter of sorts: a godsend when the senses have been dulled and deadened by over-familiarity. So, the other week when the conductor chose to preface his remarks with ‘I know I tell you this every day but…’ I sensed, at last, an acknowledgement that we’ve been in this situation before. I’m grateful for that.

As for the scrolling equivalents of those verbal communications, they brook no human intervention, no bending to circumstance. And, worst of all, no correction. For months now, we on the 7.42 have been subjected to a typo that snags my eye at regular intervals – a hellish loop that seems beyond the sphere of human influence. If anyone from Southern is reading this, please, please could someone fix it?

But a small thing to overcome

‘Swoop’ is a funny word if you think about it, and not one that’s often applied to us humans, but today it suits my purposes perfectly. I'm thinking of my early-morning progress from the upper regions of Lewes to its nether ones, and of the fact that once I’m on my way, powered simply by one cup of tea and the need to get going, it’s a veritable plunge, with little to stand in my way apart from the odd kink in the road and the usual considerations of self-preservation.

Lewes’s very particular geology is most definitely on the side of its migrant workers first thing in the morning. Gravity – not something I’ve often thought about since getting to grips with what exactly it was – is just the kind of incentive I need to get me up, out, and down to the station. And others seem to benefit from this same propulsion, so that by the time I’m crossing the bridge over the tracks I’m one amongst many, all of us coming to the end of our own personal swoops and readying ourselves to take our positions along the platform.

The other end of the day is a little harder to explain – a kind of lunge towards home, with the energy to get up the hill born of a homing instinct and no doubt a kind of natural phenomenon which assures almost all species a bed for the night. It’s a final sprint in the face of adversity – or survival of the fittest in action – and a reminder of the toughness of the commuter’s life. But by this point in the day we’ve got our coping strategies in place, and gradient is but a small thing to overcome.

Weariness descends

I’ve never – ever – used a toilet on a Southern train. It’s just not something I’d think of doing. Which reminds me: I once did a full-time job, albeit a very temporary one, where for the whole two weeks I was there I never once used the facilities. It was, I think, firstly a fear of being caught away from my post and away from the telephone (because this was the 1980s and landlocked telephones were in frequent use then), but also the fact that, when on duty, I just wasn’t in a frame of mind where it would even cross my mind to need to go. An obvious case of mind over matter, then, but an interesting one. And one that brings me forward to 2010 and to my time on the rails.

It’s not that I don’t make myself very much at home once on board, but there are certain things I don’t do. I don’t take off my shoes, I don’t sleep, I don’t apply lotions or potions, and I don’t nip to the loo. I’m strictly on duty, and I intend to stay that way.

I know of course that not everyone observes quite the same delineations between human states of mind (and body), and a quick look around the average carriage will reveal all sorts of unbuttoned behaviour that smacks of a blurring of the boundaries. That’s fine of course – though I’m as fussy as the next commuter when it comes to what impinges on my lines of sight or any other sense – but there’s a pleasure in keeping buttoned up, and it makes arrival at home all the sweeter. I step in the door and immediately my shoes feel a little too tight, my bladder needs emptying, weariness descends.

Hove instead

To the casual observer, Eastbourne and Littlehampton probably have a great deal in common, and I’m sure they’re both as lovely as each other. But hear the word ‘Littlehampton’ instead of ‘Eastbourne’ when you’re on your way to Lewes, and the feeling is not unlike what I imagine the fear of god to be. There can’t be many amalgamations of sounds that can so regularly project such contrasting realities or necessitate such immediate remedial action.

If ever there was an excuse for talking of parallel universes, then, I think I’ve found it right here in Sussex, with its vortex right there in Haywards Heath, where your hitherto reliable collection of carriages may suddenly split. However many times you’ve passed this way before, here’s a manoeuvre that can still trip you up. And if the idea is to thoroughly confuse, worry and upset the Gatwick contingent (even if not personally affected) or my parents-in-law, then this is the way to do it. For the latter, it created a kind of nail-in-the-coffin effect on their will to travel this way, coming as it always did after the hurdle of getting from one Victoria station (for the coach) to another (for the train). Never again would they submit themselves to such uncertainty.

But I can see that splitting trains is, from a business point of view, eminently sensible, and at least there’s something about this old-fashioned form of transport that is perfectly adaptable to the economic imperative. As for the parents-in-law, they still come to visit us (they are, in case you were wondering, thoroughly good sorts and welcome any time), but they now wend their way cross-country, approach pitfall-free from the west, and arrive, very sensibly, at Hove instead.

Lewes-to-London folk

A trip to far-flung Aberfeldy and the hills beyond by train – with just a smattering of hire car for the very furthest leg – is a hell of a lot of train to contend with, and a very different animal to my usual straight up and down from Lewes to London and back. In all, we were hosted by six different train companies (our fault, admittedly, for deciding to go via Shrewsbury), and the preceding months were punctuated by six different lines of enquiry, each of which – happily – ended in the acquisition of the very cheapest of tickets.

And this was just the preparatory stage. The grappling continued, with its object no longer the vagaries of pricing systems but now the awkwardness of overstuffed luggage racks, (good-natured) confrontation with fellow passengers over seat reservations, and the unnatural stretching of attention spans. How I envied my commuter-self its simple, uncontentious progress from drawing board to destination.

But I’ve come back to our native railway with a newfound appreciation of the diversity of rail travel. I’ve gained perspective and context, those twin delights of the well-travelled mind, and I now see Southern for what it really is: nothing more than an accident of politics, locality and timing – an accident which has cut it off from its counterparts in other parts of the country, lent it its greenish hue and, most importantly, made it the supposed mainstay of us Lewes-to-London folk.

Pass muster

Tomorrow I’m off to Scotland by train. There’s little to liken such a journey to my usual ups and downs from Lewes to London and back. But of course for the Lewes to London leg of this self-indulgent (as opposed to work-related) journey, I don’t need a ticket, and this fact is a source of unlikely, unexpected pleasure. My season ticket – such a sensible, necessary purchase – covers the cost as if it’s doing me a favour. And it makes me feel so much better value than my non-season-ticket-holding husband.

But there are other satisfactions to be gained from being the holder of such a thing. My particular trajectory through the ins and outs of railway property means that most of the time it sits idle in my bag, but if a conductor comes along it’s good – even gratifying – to be ready and waiting to be proved innocent

I wonder, then, if as a law-abiding citizen (the default setting for most of us, I presume) it’s one of the few occasions in fully fledged adult life when our obedience gets a chance to rear its bowed head. We get to prove we’re doing the right thing; and for once we’re not just quietly not causing trouble.

Passport control is, perhaps, an even better moment for us obedient types. There they look you up and down properly – a reminder that my season ticket photo is, I feel, worth rather more attention than it’s getting. And what about those two perfectly matched numbers on the two complementary parts of my ticket? Shouldn’t they be congratulated for their correctness on a more regular basis?

Still, at a time of life when the reward-fuelled experience of childhood is unlikely to come our way again, these meetings with conductors are junctures to be grasped. The approaching footfall and thank-you-thank-you rustle of the conductor as he passes down the train is our chance – one of our very few – to pass muster.

Two's grace

Most days, my commuting moments pile up one upon the other, each moment coming to rest neatly upon its predecessor – which is just how it should be. I’m not looking for excitement or stimulation in this part of my life.

But yesterday my moments broke the mould. I was coming to London Bridge from a – for me – unusual direction. And it dawned on me that there was no way I was going to catch my train. My comfort zone these days has expanded to the point where I can cut it fine and enjoy the challenge, but this was knife-edge fine, and I was in another zone completely. And so I relaxed: far better to miss the train by five solid minutes than actually see it pulling out.

But then – just when I didn’t require it – the must-catch-that-train instinct clicked in. And back came the adrenaline rush. I legged it through the convolutions of the London Bridge tube/train interchange, seamlessly inserted my season ticket into the slot and out again, got my body through the barrier and arrived at the train doors... And, yes, I did get on that train, slithering through the closing doors in a way that I wouldn’t repeat, wouldn’t recommend and haven’t relived – until now.

I basked in the glow of having made it. But it wasn’t just the pleasure of having caught the train that did it for me, but also the pleasure of not having to live through the dark despair of being left on the platform. There would have been a despondent, frustrated me to contend with – and thoughts of just how good life would have been if only I’d been on that train (as indeed it was for the real me already on its way to Lewes), of how all life’s problems would have melted away (as indeed they had, for now at least). And no doubt I would have cursed the punctuality of the service. Oh for a train that you could rely on to give you the courtesy of a minute or two’s grace.

Antimacassar notwithstanding

First class. Now what’s that all about? So, you get an antimacassar, that oblong piece of cloth on which to rest your head, but whether this is to protect the seat or your head, I’m not sure. And perhaps you’re just a little more likely to wind up next to someone more genteel than your (already fairly genteel) average commuter.

Far more interesting, though, are the gradations in the hierarchy of seating in standard class. To the casual traveller, this is of no concern, but I’m in it for the long haul, and so I’ve come to know every nuance of every kind of seat – a useable table; an armrest or not; full as opposed to obstructed view; a modicum, or less, of back support; aisle width (and its knock-on effects); and of course leg-room. All of which have alerted me to sensitivities I never knew I had.

But then there’s the human element to consider, and, sadly, it’s impossible to contain an environment that is assaulted – and then mutates – with every stop. But just sometimes I get it absolutely right: my neighbours are as discreet (and as discrete) in their management of personal space as I am; my back is perfectly aligned with my seat; my surroundings remain as peaceful at East Croydon as they were in Lewes. Then I wonder whether this is perhaps what first class is all about, lack of antimacassar notwithstanding.

The likes of me

So, as I was saying last week, there’s something about looking into other people’s lives from the shelter of the train that makes it neither intrusive nor untoward. You’re on the ultimate back road, cutting a swathe through homes, gardens and factories, but you didn’t ask to come this way. You just happen to be passing by, and, in any case, you’re almost invisible behind those slightly tinted windows.

And, as it happens, all those gardens streaking by give me the glimpses I need – a fix, in other words – of something I’d rather like for myself: a bigger garden. A small, boxy thing is the price we seem to pay in Lewes for surrounding ourselves by all those expansive, chalky hills, and so I’m in the fortunate position of having found something to aspire to each time I slice through Wivelsfield, Haywards Heath or even Clapham.

In short, all this is nothing like staring into someone’s front room. It’s mostly about marvelling at those gardens and the things people fill them with, enjoying the unsanctioned view of the back of a house rather than its more proper front, and sampling the messy edges of a hundred workshops and factories. So it’s spying for the fainthearted and the likes of me.