Open invite?

Mornings like this remind me of where I come from. After a cold winter, any hint of sunshine back home becomes an excuse to immediately break out flip-flops and t shirts. It was, perhaps, more justifiable there.

We spent a winter buried under seeming mountains of snow, thinking nothing of driving through two feet on snow, mindlessly following the two tiny tire tracks of previous cars…and pushing aside extra snow with the front of the car. There, some sun and a hint of spring did probably mean the temperature was infinitely warmer than it had been a month before.

Today people are wearing t shirts – only a couple, though. The rest of us aren’t wearing coats. Every day this week has been full of gorgeous sunshine, but every day the temperature slips just a tiny bit. Regardless of my near frozen hands, it is sunny and I’m dressing like it, damnit.

My manager just wore short sleeves today and is now huddled in her coat.

I wore a beautiful lightweight maternity summer dress – but over black trousers and a long sleeved black top. I’m just about the perfect temperature. (As long as I’m inside.)

Crazy train man wasn’t at the station today, and it felt like a preview for what the summer would be – hills and trees ringing my view, sunshine across my feet, a good book in my hands. Eleven weeks till I leave work to focus on baby-brewing full time.

If any of you lived nearby we could totally hang out in my garden, drinking tasty things and talking about all sorts of random, amazing crap.

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When three gather in my name.

The train doors opened, TMD exclaimed, ‘It’s snowing!’, and the train driver said, ‘Attention, it is now snowing, so do take care on your journey home.’

Yes. Snow.

This means we didn’t get to practice driving tonight. I suppose it doesn’t matter – an extra half hour will not make me pass if I’m not ready for the test. However, if the weather is like this tomorrow the test is bound to be cancelled, because people in this country freak out when it snows. We’re lucky we got the train we did – another ten minutes and I bet there would have been severe delays.

I think I would feel relieved if the test were cancelled. If we weren’t going to be making babies, I wouldn’t give a damn about not being able to drive. I’ve lived here (legally, anyway) for over seven years and survived just fine without a license. But now that we live in the sticks and I’m sure to need to be able to get around, suddenly it all feels important.

Boo hiss boo.

As you come to the end of this entry, shut your eyes and send a quick wish my way.

I am a non-train spotter.

I talk about the train station all the time. Want visuals? (Apologies for quality, taken on my phone.)

The walk to the station:

My train platform going into work, where all the Crazy Shit With John happens:

The platform when I get home (and huddle under cover from the rain waiting for TMD to pick me up!):

Lovely road behind the park behind our house (behind the front of the house, behind the street in front…):

Last bit of walk home, where I imagine a crazy killer could get me at night, were it not so peaceful:

And now, our cat (I am becoming everything I hate by posting pictures of my pet, appreciate the sacrifice):

For John.

I sat down on a bench at – where else – my train station this morning. No sooner had I read a couple of pages of The Stand, the guy next to me said, ‘Look at this.’ He held out a very tattered book full of notes in the margin. He flipped to the title page where he had drawn out an elaborate mind map and pointed to the middle circle.

‘This says women like men with emotional variety. Do you think that’s true?’

An odd beginning to a conversation with a complete stranger, but also a complete delight. Our conversation meandered along – gender politics, accents, counselling, psychics. At the end he offered his hand and asked for my name.

If there were more Johns in the world, what an exceptional chance we’d all have for early morning meaningfulness.