So the evening before I was due to travel, I made a journey to one of our local supermarkets to see if late in the day, they were discounting any of their sandwiches. As it happened they were not, but I did pick up a triple chicken and bacon wrap, a little bowl of fruit, a tray of sushi and a small bottle of mineral water which was all discounted by about a quarter if you bought them together as ‘meals deal’ So these were popped into the fridge and will be transferred into my food bag in the morning. During the course of the evening, I had a brief conversation with my American friend now recovering from the virus which had afflicted her but she has a doctor’s appointment in the morning. I spent some time filling in an insurance claim for the travel ticket which my friend cannot use but they needed documentary proof of a medical condition which, of course, we were not able to provide. Quite unusually for me, I intend to turn in and have quite an early night tonight and will set the alarm to get up at 6.00am in the morning to finish off my packing. I am relieved that my son is giving me a lift to the station which alleviates the overall stress of the long journey somewhat although I generally enjoy travelling by train if the carriages are not too bulging with people and/or noisy and the direction in which I am travelling there may, of course, be holiday makers returning from the South coast to the North of England. The death has been announced of the Country and Western singer Dolly Parton who, it must be said, was a national icon in the USA. She died at the age of 80 and it always comes as a bit of a shock when well known figures pass away who are younger than you are. Although it must be said, the repertoire and stye of Dolly Parton is hardly my cup of tea but one can only admire the philanthropy. It is said that she earned about $600 million but gave almost all of it away. She had a passion for helping the youth. The Dollywood Foundation was created in the 1980s during her career peak, helping children in Sevier County, Tennessee – where she grew up – to achieve educational success. Through it, she created the Buddy Program, which gave $500 to every seventh and eighth grader who finished high school. The foundation’s website claims the initiative saw the dropout rate go from 35 per cent to just six per cent. Parton also began a scholarship program in 2000, giving $15,000 to five high school seniors from Sevier County who wished to go to college to follow their dreams. The Dollywood project became one of her most incredible legacies, and as of 2025, it gives over 3.4 million books per month to children in the USA and internationally. Practical philanthropy on this scale is almost unparalleled and can only marvel at the good that she did, and will continue to do. She was the 4th in a family of 12 children but never had any children of her own. Returning to practicalities, the Chinese have a saying that a ‘journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step’ so I got up an hour earlier than normal and will concentrate on the final packing of toiletries, food and important things like daily medication (which I have forgotten before) and things like spare batteries which the remote control in the bedroom inevitably needs.
And now for the story of my journey. I caught an earlier train into BNS (Birmingham New Street) and all seemed to be going well as the platform for the departure of the train for York was just around the corner from which I had alighted. At first, the York train seem to have been delayed by about eight minutes but this grew and grew until the delay was of the order of 25 minutes. Then 5 minutes before the train was due to arrive there was a sudden platform change and I was fortunate not to board a Leicester bound train that has just ‘snuck’ into the gap. When the train arrived it was a five coach train and I was one of the first to board the correct carriage but the luggage compartment was already filled with huge suitcases. So I located my seat but there was no way or indeed room that I could have hoisted my large suitcase aloft so it occupied my seat space and I sat on a seat next to a young lady who turned out to be a PhD student at Oxford University. The train was having to go quite slow in case any of the rails were damaged and so the train actually got into York about 1 hour and 50 minutes behind schedule. When I started to speak with the yong lady next to me (actually we were both having a little meal break, sushi on my part which was delicious) we found we had quite a lot in common. My travelling companion was either Ukrainian or Serbian but spoke these two languages as well as Russian and Spanish as well. We exchanged a lot of linguistic stories as well as stories about submitting a PhD but when we were getting up to get off at York, a rather extraordinary thing happened. Another young lady smiled broadly at both of us and told us that she hoped we didn’t mind but she had overheard a lot of our conversation and was absolutely enthralled by it! She herself was a student at Henley Management College in Oxfordshire but that was all we gleaned in a quick snatch of conversation. I had to locate a train to Harrogate but this was easy to find and I only had a 20 minute wait. When I got to Harrogate, I immediately went and bought my ticket to go to Knaresborough in the morning to see my sister and then got a taxi to go to Crown so that I didn’t wear myself out. Having got myself installed in me temporary home for the next five nights, I went shopping to the little store across the road where I bought some milk and, as it cold from their fridge, immediately transferred it to some vacuum flasks that I had brought with me. Thinking about the things I had forgotten to bring with me, one is some light rainwear so I hope to dodge the showers in the next day or so.