Train of thought

7.35am, and I’m sitting in the Pumpkin Café, York station, with cup of tea and bacon roll. On my way to the US Embassy to renew my visa. Mine and the children’s. Probably want to take them back with me when I go. Be a shame if I had a visa and they didn’t.

Bit of an adventure getting here. Had planned to leave house by 6.10, to get 6.53 train from Malton to York. Woke up at 6.28. Don’t know how this happened. My alarm clock was set. Husband’s alarm clock was set. Did we both mis-set them? Did they both fail to go off? Freakish. Or did we both sleep through them? Perhaps we need a holiday. Oh. We’re on holiday. Does the part of me that doesn’t want to renew my visa have more say when I’m asleep? So anyway, 6.28. That left me 25 minutes exactly to get up, dressed, drive 8 miles to Malton, find somewhere to park (no station car park at Malton and I don’t know the town, only ever been to the station to pick up or drop off), and buy a ticket.

I made it. Still now quite sure how, though remember finding a miraculously free car park (didn’t know those existed any more), and running to the station, wiping tears out of my eyes as the chill morning wind whipped by my face (wind, because I was running like the, not because it was a windy morning - just to clarify). Even had time for little chat with booking office clerk, who said he’d been a bit late for work himself and it must be one of those days. Hope the Embassy staff don’t mind my hair, or my unshowered aroma.

8.05am, and I’m on the train to London King’s Cross. I love train travel. Love it with a passion that makes me wonder if I was born in the wrong era. Thank goodness I had sons, because they’re nothing if not a good excuse for the occasional steam train ride.

Got a seat with a table, and have The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I’m told (by many, though not all) I won’t be able to put down, but I know that for most of the journey, I won’t write or read. I’ll look out of the window. Why ever not? Flashing through probably the most beautiful county in probably the most beautiful country on earth.

Might have to move. There’s a woman with a mobile phone, a written report, and a very loud voice.

“Well, Jason, I think I’m just going to put 2.5 as regards that figure, because that’s what all the other sites have done, and so I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”

I don’t see why she shouldn’t either, but I don’t want to listen all the way to King’s Cross. Train is remarkably empty (why?), so plenty of choice.

Power stations – one on my left, one on my right. Countryside very flat now. That’ll teach me to write “probably the most beautiful county…”.

Haven’t got a laptop. Just in case you were picturing me, all high tech and wired up. Or wire free. No, not allowed electrical things in the US Embassy. Not even allowed a clicky key fob. Lucky I had an old-fashioned turn-in-the-lock one, though intriguingly it only worked in the passenger side door. That required about 3 precious seconds in the car park. The remembering and the sprinting round to the other side.

Now, Bloggy Peeps. Should that be Peops? Trouble is, that looks like Pee-ops. But Peeps is a bit Thomas the Tank Engine. Oh, I don’t know. I’ll call you Bloggy Friends.

Now, Bloggy Friends. I know I’m on a blogging break, but I thought you might like to know about my summer so far. Just a few highlights.

Cyber Mummy
Oh my goodness, I loved Cyber Mummy (except for the name, sorry, I just can’t love that name). There was something very fulfilling, in the genuine sense of that word, about meeting women who I’d got to know so well online over the past three years. I mean, three years is hardly a whirlwind romance, so these are people who have had a window into a measurable percentage of my adult life, and I into theirs. Yours.

There were some excellent moments. One of my faves was when I won a month’s supply of Garofalo pasta in the prize draw. I and the friend I was sitting next to thought it was Gruffalo pasta, because she’d just been telling me about interviewing Julia Donaldson. Gruffalo pasta. Why the heck not?

More summer highlights:

over-riding my vertigo to go up the Eiffel Tower – to the top, mind you – and finding I thoroughly enjoyed it;

sitting in the front garden, sharing a bottle of evening wine with my husband and brother, the temperature somewhere around the high 80s, the air scented with jasmine, still, and heavy, the conversation punctuated by Parisians nodding Bonsoir to my brother as they walked past;

watching my temperature-resistant children swim in the sea with cousins in both Brighton and St Andrews (different cousins – we don’t carry a set round with us on our travels);

the mundane familiarity of small English things, like being called ‘Love’ by shop assistants;

visiting ruined abbeys and having picnics;

staying with my mum, who is quite definitely one of Britain’s National Treasures;

old friends, with their children 2 years older than last time I saw them;

going to a museum, or two or three, including the Natural History Museum in London, where 9-yo decided he wants to become a geologist;

bumping into some friends at Abington services on the M74. We were driving north from Yorkshire to the Scottish Highlands. They were driving south from Edinburgh to the Lake District. What were the chances? We last saw them in October 2006, just before we went to America. We gave them lamps that we couldn’t take with us (different voltage in the US). I’d forgotten. They now have a 2 year old.

Oh so many more, but this is a blog, not a novel, so I must stop. One low point to report: 9-yo breaking his collar bone when he fell off a bike. Hurrah for the NHS, I must say. In and out of A&E within an hour and a quarter - friendly nurses, friendly doctor, x-rays, pain-killers, and a sling - no forms to fill in, and not a penny to pay. Horrid to see him in pain and shrunk into himself, though. He's doing fine now - thanks for asking - and having an arm in a sling doesn't stop him doing much. Cricket, football, swimming, building sandcastles, DS, monopoly, sibling squabbling... all these summer activities are possible one-armed. Just as well he's not a blogger. Blogging one-handed would be frustrating.

More anon.

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