“I feel I’ve just got out of outer Mongolia,” says one lady on her phone as I’m writing. “I’m knackered and all it was was a train to Littlehampton. I’ve just lost the will to live.”
It’s been a baptism of fire for sure, coming from the sleepy Island of Jersey and into the day I’ve just had. That last train was all of the people from loads of trains at the end of the school day in Havant. They all bundled in on top of one another howling and screaming. I suspect she’s thinking about the hordes of Genghis Khan, but all they were stealing was signs and nobody hit me with an axe. One of them even put a little apology note for stealing the sign. I was last off the train so I snapped it.
Kids are exhausting in large numbers. And those kids on the train were still expressing the fact they were allowed to be in proximity to one another again. They were all buoyed up on each others excitement to fever pitch. It was a chaos of conflicting noises… Who the hell wants to be a teacher? Urrgh.
I’ve been managing loads of the dreaded youth today with some workshops. Once every few months is enough for me. My fantasy of a lovely calm sunlit trip through dappled woodlands and bright English seascapes was severely upset by the fact that I lived inside a shouting teenagers armpit for about half an hour. I’ve escaped now though. I can think enough to write this. There’s green out the window. The sun is low and it’s lighting everything well and it looks pretty.
I’m off to see Lou! Oh phew. Oh lordy. I’m knackered already and it’s only half past five, and we are being thrown all over the place and I wish that people hadn’t been panic buying fecking petrol because normally I’d just have driven this whole damn journey and this is why I hate trains hate trains hate trains. I’m honestly happier on the Megabus as the cost matches the experience. Trains you pay too much and then everything gets cancelled and you have a horrible time and they were all shouting and I left a room full of shouting kids only to sit in a TINY CARRIAGE full of them and aaargh.
So I’m gonna go for dinner with Lou and she’s gonna tell me I’m talking too quickly and I’m gonna want a glass of wine and it’ll be really lovely so lovely to see her. I’ve missed her calm. I’ve been storm in Jersey. Heading to the sea. Two nights here and then finally London. I’m gonna sit here, and breathe and look at green things out of the window.
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Immediately after I scheduled this, the worst busker in Sussex stood directly behind me to shout “Get rhythm when you get the blues”. Oh please just get me to the seaside.
AlBarclay 