53 years ago today, I travelled on one of the numerous steam specials to Carnforth on the last day of scheduled steam train services on British Rail. Annoyingly, my photographs of, I think, three Stanier Class 5 locomotives, cleaned up and lined up for this curtain-dropping day, failed miserably; I had used the wrong exposure, causing the image to be overly pale. Nevertheless, I was there, as a somewhat impressionable nineteen year-old. I was also there for The Last Steam Train of August 11th, for which my father very kindly treated me to a ticket. Maybe, I shall write about that next Wednesday. I really can’t believe all that was fifty-three years ago. And the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends “How Terribly Strange to be Seventy” come to mind. That phrase has always stuck with me. Back then, I would imagine myself at that age, not really believing that I would sail past age 70 in Brisbane of all places, two years ago! Occasionally, I do “sit on a park bench, quietly” usually in the Pavilion Gardens. While I shuddered at the thought of retirement, nothing surpasses the almost total freedom of today. The switch from regular employment to absolute choice of how I now spend each day never phased or traumatised me. I am never bored, and have a ton of travel and other events to look back on, and maybe, one day, write about. I now have a notion to sit on park benches in major cities across the world, beginning with Tokyo next May, covid permitting. That’s another justification for “extravagant journeyings – park bench spotting!”
In Buxton, we have had a “run” of fairly decent weather after the sweltery weeks of “Festival July.” Previously, I had complained about grey skies and autumnal temperatures, but these were short-lived. The stifling heat has gone, but it is not uncomfortable being outside in short sleeved attire as dusk falls.
Thursday 5th August
For some reason, the weather forecasters on T.V., some of whom are more concerned with self image and irrelevant entertaining, rather than just delivering the weather forecast, are extraordinarily pessimistic in their warnings of low pressure from the west and thus unsettled weather to come. I.T.V. local forecasts are prefixed and suffixed by excruciatingly annoying sponsorship announcements from utility companies and come coated with irrelevant drivel. Despite Daily Expressesque prophecies of gloom, each day, albeit with a distant thunderstorm and occasional downpour, seems to be quite nice, really.
I enjoy being a “grumpy old man!” And I hope those around me take my rantings with a sizeable pinch of salt! However, I do reserve the right to blow a fuse/gasket when the occasion calls for it.
As you can see from my random ramblings, there is little to write about that comes to mind. While I have no interest in the Olympics, when unable to escape related news reports etc., I am in awe of those participating, whatever the event. And I can’t help but quietly celebrate when Team G.B. trawls in a stack of medals. What the participants achieve, merely just by entering, is beyond astonishing.
But my interest is in the resumption of the former Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, irritatingly now branded “The B.B.C. Proms.” Actually, perhaps the “Beeb” does have a right to put its branding on this wonderful annual event, even if the founder, Sir Henry Wood receives little acknowledgement these days. Last night, I listened to the entire concert through those wonderful headphones I bought in Singapore two years ago, with absolutely no disturbance to those living next door. When was the last time I heard Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony in its entirety? I was familiar with most of it, but the opportunity to tune in (on my T.V.) and listen in the lounge, feet on coffee table, disturbed only by the half-hourly chiming of my great grandfather’s clock, was precious. It is said that one returns to one’s childhood as time progresses; certainly, I am beginning to enjoy, once more, the pleasures of listening to classical music, as I did in childhood days.
Before the pandemic, I crammed in as much global travel as I was able, with the philosophy that there will (or might be) no tomorrow. There nearly was “no tomorrow” as the “isolated bubble” (Cunard’s Queen Victoria) sailed along an almost life-less Solent into Southampton two days early from its voyage around South America. I certainly felt like one of a chosen few at that time, aboard a vessel completely free of coronavirus. I know that I am always referring to this voyage, but it did make a lasting (positive) impression on me. “Struggling through the next eighteen months with not so much as stepping aboard a U.K. train was therefore not the hardship it might otherwise have been. There were small inconveniences of course; not being able to have my hair cut for seven months being one of them. But the opportunity to walk to places I would never dream of exploring, did present new and unexpected delights. Only now, 18 months later, am I beginning to want to venture further afield. But, there’s still an unnecessary risk. I shall probably wait until May to “sit on a park bench quietly” in Tokyo.
Thanks for reading my ramblings,
David, 11.55hrs, 5th August 2021, with feet on the coffee table.
David's Cruise 