Wandering Aimlessly

                                              Several moons ago, Dear Reader, I was out toddling the neighbourhood on my ‘jack jones’ aka ‘alone’ when I stumbled across two of my walking companions, one of whom accused me of ‘wandering aimlessly’.  As we went off in our various directions I pondered upon that accusation and decided that it is true. I do wander aimlessly. Indeed it would be a worthy criticism if I failed to ‘wonder aimlessly’ in the process. But I combine both so I regard the accusation as a compliment rather than a slur.  On Sunday, 30^th November I arrived home after 35 days strolling around the UK. It was not entirely aimless because I did want to visit our daughter, Alison, visit my two brothers and my sister, introduce myself to two bairns who have arrived recently and watch four rugby games involving Scotland at Murrayfield in Edinburgh.  I also managed to touch base and enjoy the hospitality of old friends and, in the process, meet new acquaintances.

                                       Dear friends, amongst the wide diaspora of British acquaintances I have, there are some who will never return to ‘Blighty’ as the UK is endearingly known. “It’s not the same, Pete”.  “Where is the same and why would we want it to be so?’ I am tempted to reply. So now I think of myself as being weird for enjoying every moment of my 5 week stay. But with vast amounts of hither-and-thither  things were going to go awry and, inevitably, they did. Let me give you an example.

                                      Travelling down from one of my weekend sojourns in Edinburgh to see Alison and Brother George in London, it was recommended that I NOT travel back up the following weekend on the east coast line because of weekend repairs. Instead I was to travel Euston to Glasgow Central changing at Carlisle for a train to Edinburgh.  So I have booked a window seat and am aboard  a train that  is over half full. The window seat is not a window seat but is where a window would have been if the design had permitted one. It is a blank piece of beige plastic. The train leaves on time. People read, people check their phones, people watch sport on their i=pads, some engage with the strangers sat next to them. An apologetic voice comes over the comms. “We apologise but due to a broken rail, this train will terminate at Preston.” The apologies are profuse, sound sincere and feel frustrated.  Personally I have never been to Preston. I have heard of Preston North End FC but have no idea why.  The reaction of the people on the train is a deep philosophical sigh.  The young couple next to me, smile with a strange open faced joy as if this is the best thing that could happen to them. The train is approaching Preston and now that the seat next to me is vacant I lug my case from the luggage rack and place it beside me, ready to disembark. The train pulls in but just prior to its arrival an happy voice announces that the rail is fixed and we can now continue to Glasgow so now a cheer goes up and people clap. I would have done both but now I am desperate to return my baggage to the luggage rack so, like President Gerald Ford whose legend included the fact that he couldn’t chew gum and think at the same time, I am now confronted with new passengers who are blocking my passage. All is not lost. A friendly Glaswegian takes my case, places it and plunks himself down next to me. Train moves. We have a nice chat (his son plays on the wing for Leyton Orient FC in London). He expects to stay on the train now all the way home to Glasgow. I expect to detrain as the original plan at Carlisle.  All is good for me but sadly not for my new found acquaintance. The driver gets on the intercom and explains that he is happy to continue to Glasgow but due to Health and Safety and the fact that he has already exceeded his hours of work he is not being permitted so to do. We feel for him, we sense the slump in his shoulders, we imagine a quivering of his bottom lip but now all Glasgow- bounds are off the train at Carlisle with we Edinburgh travellers. So the Carlisle platform is full of disgruntlement and crowds. But all is not lost because a Glasgow train arrives, admittedly crowded, admittedly about to receive another mass which it will struggle to accommodate ,But on they get.  They are a horde, a standing army of proximate body odour, a sweaty mass of humanity with armpits not their own, hale halitosis invading privacy, anything closer, Dear Friends,  would involve sex or murder. They once were a people like me, they once had room, they could breathe an air which was exclusively theirs. Alas no more, my heart goes out to them. Meanwhile on the platform I am observing the congregation of Edinburgh bound folk of which I am one. I am now deciding that I will not be getting aboard the next Edinburgh train and take myself off to the café where I grab the last white bread toastie on offer, slices that may well have curled at the ends some hours before and a flat white coffee which would too have curled at the ends if liquid could do so. Similar on the Edinburgh train. Mass joins mass. Civilized nuance gives way to cheek by jowl. I am left with stragglers on the platform as it lurches out. And then 30 minutes later I am seated on an half empty Edinburgh train, reading my book and texting my friend that I am three hours late.  So why are you being burdened with this story? I guess it is because that I am surprised at what I have become in old age. The truth is that I enjoyed every minute of this disruptive debacle. I know that I spent most of the time smiling and some of the time laughing as people shared their experiences with me.  It would be wrong to say that this was the highlight of my trip, there was much, much more that was better than that.  But I guess that such events make me feel more than ever that I am at home even though I have lived in Canada since 1991. And I always say on the rare occasions that I am asked that we never left the UK because we were unhappy rather it was for a new experience, a new adventure and so forth.  So to this day, it is a joy for me to return. There is a lump in my throat when the lone piper begins the anthem at Murrayfield and 80,000 voices rise in support. There is a tranquillity of calm as I sit beside a dirt path on an azure day by a loch of my youth with a cold wind blowing, miniature white caps doing their best to impress and in the distance, the island with the Wolf of Badenoch’s ruined castle (the one from which he set off to burn down Elgin Cathedral all those centuries ago). Lochindorb is my youth. Nor can I sneeze at the pathetic wee trek I make uphill through mixed woodland in the Trossachs. The day was glorious, the breeze was vigorous. I brought along my arthritic right knee for the ride. It too wanted to continue upwards but hinted occasionally that I had to bring it down hill again and that it liked going down a lot less than going up. Age curtails but doesn’t remove all pleasure. The heather clad peaks held a dusting of snow, an urge to feel it crunch underfoot but the realisation that it would not be possible. A light hearted limerick of an outing would become an epic of Odyssey proportions, a pathetic attempt not to grow old gracefully. It would have been foolhardy of me to have continued so I had to be content and content I was.

                   Friends, there is always a temptation for me to epiphanize (there is no such word I know) when I go ‘home’. Strange that I should call it that after so many years away. But, Dear Friends, even if I had wanted to I cannot shrug off what the land and people gave to me all those years ago. The humour, the newspapers, the TV, the book shops, the countryside, the narrow roads, the accents, the eccentricities, the many different cultures, following the route of Robbie Burns, sniffing around the building where James Barrie created ‘Peter Pan’, climbing the Wallace Monument and seeing Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge below, understanding the feeling that every situation is desperate but not serious, the occasions, the events (The Constable/Turner Exhibition at the Tate, The ‘Secret Maps’ display at the British Library and, of course, rugby at Murrayfield), not to mention the wind. How I love a wind on my face, a breeze in the trees, the sound of the sea in a storm, the lap of a loch in a gale. A cold breath  on my face, a dyke or a tree or a hill to shelter behind, a temporary escape from an element which can still be heard, an attention seeking friend which dogs every step until one has had enough and shuts it away behind a car door or an hotel entrance. The wind always greets me like I’ve been away too long.

                 And yes, my friends, I know that not all in the garden is rosy; that homelessness and helplessness walks the streets; that not far away brutal wars are being fought; that dictators are laughing at democratic dithering and threaten us all.  But, Dear Reader, I cannot help but clutch at the straw of joyfulness and fun not because I am naïve (Although I have my share of gullibility), nor because I convince myself that I should. It is simply who I am. I am so grateful to be able to still do those 35 days at the age of 73 years when so many of my friends and acquaintances no longer can because of sickness and ill health or because they are no longer here. For that short time in the old country it was wonderful to feel a part again. So thanks to our daughter, brothers and sister, sisters-in-law, Sadie and Iris and their proud parents ,Holly and Chris, Matthew and Nicola. Words to for Audrey in Edinburgh, Malcolm and Elaine, Vikki and Helen, Peggy and Fiona and every stranger who bought me a Guinness, every youngster who gave up their seat or lugged my case upstairs at tube stations, the one employee who told me to ‘run’ because she was not going to charge me for the breakfast that she was ashamed of, the Romanian receptionist who found me a phone repair shop at Kings Cross when I needed it  and every varied vignette of friendly  customer service who told me that the broken sat nav was not my fault, or that the painting that I had inherited was safe in the hands of Air Canada. (It is now on our wall,)

                                                   ’All that is gold does not glitter,

                                                  Not all those who wander are lost,

                                                   The old that is strong does not wither,

                                                  Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”      J.R.R.Tolkien   

             Seasons greetings to you all.