Snapshot: one year ago today

Tonight I’m taking the overnight train from London to Fort William. One year ago to the day, I was stepping off another overnight train…

The most wonderful train in Britain

I’m not a trainspotter, but I would agree that the journey is definitely as important as the destination. So here’s how my month ‘off’ will be starting tomorrow night, as described by Mark Smith, the travel expert behind the phenomenally useful website seat61.com:

Easily the most amazing train ride in Britain is the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Fort William, sometimes known as ‘The Deerstalker’…

Why?  Imagine the convenience of a train that leaves rainy central London after work at 21:00 and arrives at Fort William in the glorious Scottish West Highlands at the foot of Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in Britain) at 09:43 next morning.  Imagine a trip where you go to bed as the train speeds through familiar London suburbs at 80mph, then wake up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains, streams and woods, sunlight streaming through the window, deer bounding away from the train, a diesel locomotive struggling to haul the two sleeping-cars and lounge car up the gradients and around the sharp curves of the scenic West Highland Line at 40mph.  Imagine a train that has almost ‘cruise train’ facilities - private sleeping compartments and a plush lounge - yet on which ‘Bargain berth’ fares start at only £19 one way.

Regular fares start at £107 return sharing a 2-berth room or £199 return with a room to yourself (passengers travelling alone can opt to book a berth in a 2-berth room and share with another passenger of the same sex, if they don’t want to pay the 1st class single berth fare).  Anyone who lives in London or the South of England but who loves the Scottish West Highlands should know about this train.  If you fancy a weekend away in the heart of the Highlands, this train makes it possible..!  Book online at www.firstscotrail.com.

To complete the experience, take the connecting train from Fort William to the end of the line at Mallaig, a small fishing port and ferry terminal for Skye.  This is one of the most scenic sections of line in the UK.  Or you could climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain - the main track up ‘the Ben’ starts just 15 minutes walk from Fort William station.

There’s more information about the Deerstalker and other overnight trains between London and Scotland at seat61.com, Wikipedia, and First Scotrail.

Little Britain

There’s an old joke or urban myth about the American woman who, upon meeting a British person holidaying in the USA, asks him if he happens to know her British friend Susan. Perhaps it’s something to do with the diminutive size of little country (although as this television advert notes, the same anecdote works with stereotypical foreigners’ views of the big ol’ country of Canada as well).

Britain (population approximately 60,000,000) can, conversely, seem like a pretty big place to people living here in London (population approximately 8,500,000). It continues to bemuse me how many Londoners (whether natives or adoptees) perceive the United Kingdom to be so much larger than it actually is in geographic terms. A certain friend (who shall remain anonymous) complained to me one evening the other week about how far she had travelled that day. She’d had to go to Birmingham for a meeting. That would be the Birmingham that is about 120 miles (190km) away, or ninety minutes by train. It really did feel to her as though Birmingham was in northern Scotland. Earlier this week she went to another meeting in Leicester. Needless to say, that sounded as if it had been in Novosibirsk.

Two months of work in London are almost up. I’ve been pretty quiet on this blog because I completely underestimated the amount of time that simply living in London takes up. Thirty minute commutes twice a day aren’t too bad, but then neither are they quite long enough to really settle into for a really good read. Occasional long days in front of the computer have become more frequent, sapping my energy or desire to do anything in the evenings. Precious weekends away have been made possible by a four day working week, but then that extra day off hasn’t always been fully taken advantage of. I love this city, I really do, but there is no way that I could or would want to live here for a long time. I do indeed - as proud Londoners will always tell me - have everything I could possibly want right on my doorstep. But having grown up less than one hour away from the capital, I see no need to pay the inflated rent, council tax, public transport costs and overall cost of living that comes with being here. I don’t want to get used to paying £3 - £4 for a pint of beer, and I don’t want to live in a neighbourhood where Tesco has desimated the options for buying fresh food locally. And yes, there are indeed two reasonably popular markets close to me - yuppies have made one extortionately expensive and rather stodgy produce has made the other undesirable. London is a great city, but it’s not nearly as great to live in as some of it’s fans make out to be.

These two months have been a brilliant experience. I’ve learnt a lot in my job, working with people I have enjoyed getting to know, and learning a lot about my profession to level of detail I did not expect to reach. I’ve also realised that the opportunity to work in a very small architectural practice is one of the best ways for staying in control of your learning curve, and being able to influence how and what you work on. I have a much clearer picture of what I might be doing one year from now, and I am a lot more cautious about chosing my next steps. Everything returns a sense of scale. A sense of physical scale and a sense of psychological scale. For an example of the physical scale, I miss Canada greatly - it helped me greatly to adapt to the scale of our world, notably by taking quite a few trains for more than a day at a time, like the forty hour VIA Rail service from Winnipeg to the Hudson Bay, or the three day marathon from Vancouver to Toronto. I’ve come back to the UK with a much more realistic sense of scale. Meeting in Birmingham? Sure thing, I’ll be back for lunch.

You should have seen the other guy…

…no seriously, you should have seen him, because I didn’t. As far as I can tell the driver and occupants of this car scarpered after slamming into the back of the minivan taxi cab that was taking me to London Waterloo station at 05h00 this morning. Voices overheard immediately after the accident included “you were doing at least sixty over the bridge” and “I told you, man, airbags…”

I’m fine (I think - I’m about to go to a clinic for a check up here in Haarlem) but my wanky metal specs are slightly bent and they in turn gave me a few cuts around my eyes. My fault for choosing sharply styled specs? No - my fault for not wearing a seat belt, and being thrown forward after the initial shunt, when the minivan hit the car in front. Don’t feel sorry for me - feel sorry for the driver of my cab. I was his first shift of the weekend, and he didn’t even get my fare before his car was written off.

The ontheroad podcast episode 04: The Great British Beer Festival, Earl’s Court, London

The temptation was too much… hundreds of fine ales, one exhibition centre and one pint glass. Your loyal host tried his best at the 30th Great British Beer Festival at London’s Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. Thanks to everyone I spoke to and apologies to those whose conversations didn’t make it into the final edit - I wanted to keep the show under thirty minutes and free of my personal anti-chain-pub tirades….