By Angela Garwood
Maia and I recently took the train up to Lancaster for a post-birthday adventure, to visit my cousins.
As I booked the trains earlier this year, amid train-strikes and other disruptions, I thought “Everything will be fine by May… May is months away.”
And everything was fine. Until someone thought it’d be fun to cut the signalling cables somewhere between Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
Casually checking my National Rail app on the morning of our trip, I noticed most trains on our route had so far either been cancelled or severely delayed.
“What shall we do?” I asked a member of staff at the Wokingham ticket office.
“Just get on the train to Birmingham … then at least you’ll be halfway there,” she said, almost chuckling to herself.
All the uncertainty did not make for a relaxing journey. Would we even make it to Birmingham? If we did, would we make our connection? Would we really travel all that way only to come home again?
Our train was inevitably delayed, and midway to Birmingham, after a while with little to no phone signal, I noticed a flurry of missed calls from my cousins.
“Get off at Stafford,” they said, explaining our Birmingham connection would be too tight.
We did, eventually, make it to Lancaster. Only 20 minutes after our planned arrival time.
I enjoyed most of the third leg, reading and dipping in and out of eavesdropping on a slightly tipsy-sounding woman befriending half the carriage.
Uno made an appearance.
The rest of the weekend more than made up for the stressful outward journey. We spent Saturday in the Lake District, taking in the stunning scenery of Grasmere.
“Are you going to climb Helvellyn?” my Dad asked before we left.
“Er, no,” I responded, never more certain of anything, ever. (Not this time anyway.)
Instead, we took a leisurely stroll around Lake Grasmere, ending the afternoon with ice-creams in the village. (Far less scrambling and solely feet on the ground, no hands and knees.)
I bought an obligatory tea-towel in a charming little gift-shop and browsed one of the art galleries.
Later, my cousin Rachel and I got chatting to the lovely shop assistant in the village bookshop, who happened to be reading The Giant on the Skyline, a book by the very author I’d been telling Rachel about as we browsed the shop; Clover Stroud.
It was a new release, so not entirely coincidental, but enough to make me smile.
Later, we ventured to a family-friend’s house for pizza and cake. Maia played happily with her new friend Mary, making clay-bead bracelets and getting out-bounced by adults on the trampoline.
A visit to the village of Silverdale followed on the Sunday, which was quaint and beautiful, full of gorgeous old cottages and views of the sea.
We spent the evening in our pyjamas playing games and listening to music. Maia is apparently a gifted Mastermind player, whereas my strengths lie in Connect 4. Articulate got rather frustrating for everyone involved.
Monday saw a speedy visit to Williamson Park and its Ashton Memorial before heading home.
It was, very nearly, an entirely smooth journey back. But then we reached Oxford, where the train terminated due to an incident further down the line. Passengers were loaded into taxis to Didcot, where we resumed the remainder of our journeys.
Two hours later than planned, we finally arrived home, which felt like an achievement in itself. Disruptions aside, it was a wonderful weekend.
And I do still love a train journey.
Angela blogs at The Colourful Kind
