I awoke yesterday morning in Paul’s bed. Paul wasn’t there I’ll have you know, but seeing as I’m the only one in the house at the moment and his radiator is the only one that can be arsed to work, I’ve decided that camping in his room for a few days is warranted.
So, sitting in my sleeping bag (don’t want to touch the sheets!) I checked on the BBC weather website to find out if my two mystery shops could actually be completed today. Well, high pressure and zero wind meant there’d be no more snow coming my way, so I gambled out of bed as quickly as I could and got myself down to the train station.
Guess what, it’s been snowing. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone is aware that it’s been snowing for quite a while now. In fact, it’s getting to the point where the novelty has just about worn off and you just want to get on with your life. The snow’s been here so long now I’m beginning to think the world is enacting The Day After Tomorrow in slow motion. Checking on Yahoo News today, the headline simply reads ‘Britain’s Big Freeze to get worse’. How tragic.
Anyway, I successfully managed to get to the station without falling slap on my arse. While heading towards my first train, a rather aged, balding man with a heavy-looking suitcase sprinted past me, closely followed by a guy with one of those stupid grey hats that fold back and look a wee bit like a condom. They were running for my train! I looked up and realised the doors were about to shut. Now, I had a decision to make. Either a) run to the train, slip on the platform, embarrass myself and watch the carriage doors shut from my new lowly position on the floor, or b) walk normally towards the train, if it goes, it goes.
I walked. It went. I carried on walking as though I didn’t even want that train. I passed the condom guy, who hadn’t reached the train in time, and was hitching up his pants from below his knees.
So, instead of going to Halifax first I ended up on the train to Selby. I should have remembered this as the conductor came up to me and asked if I was going to York. My reply: “Erm… no. Sheffield”. She looked at me as though I was a moron. My brain itself was kicking me. For, at what point do you then go “Oh erm… sorry no this isn’t to Sheffield is it. Erm… Selby then I think”.
She walked on by with an expression on her face of ‘why did I pick a job that dealt with the general public?’ and I got nestled in to a meaty article in the Metro.
Selby was fairly unremarkable, as was my visit to Halifax. However, on my way back to Halifax station I overheard a conversation between two elderly ladies. It went:
“So did you have a good Christmas?”
“Oh yes. Although it was a quiet one this year.”
“Aye same. Nice… but quiet.”
Now, what were they expecting? We’re all fed on television and films this idea of the massive family intrusion on your doorstep descending the household into chaos for a day, but that doesn’t really happen. You’ve cooked a roast dinner hundreds of times before, so this one is as much as a doddle as the one you did last week. You sit there with people you live with, and only comment on how nice the turkey is and how repulsive the sprouts are because they only make an entrance to your dinner table once a year. The crackers are woefully disappointing and yet you lament over the crap standards of the jokes as though this were a surprise, and the television schedule is a bunch of hour-length specials telling you how great Christmas is, while you and everyone in the world are all in the knowledge they were filmed back in August. Of course you had a quiet Christmas.
Back at Halifax station I had another look around the Eureka grounds. Eureka, as I have mentioned before, is the best place in the world – when you are a kid at least. It looked great covered in snow, a proper fantasy.
Anyway, my journey home was dominated by an attempted conversation with a man who sounded like he was from Latvia or Armenia or somewhere like that. He was asking for 10p so he could upgrade his ticket from a single to a return. Sadly, it took rather a long time to explain this to me, as his English was not good, he was talking into my deaf ear, the carriage was exceptionally noisy, and I was more concerned with the pink magazine he was brandishing at me.
I eventually got the gist, that he would give me his magazine, that I had seen him pick up off the carriage floor about two minutes beforehand, if he could have 10p. I looked at the magazine. It was one of those celebrity ones, but sadly I didn’t recognise it. To be honest, if it’s not Hello Mag, I don’t want it. And to be honest, I would happily have paid the guy 10p to take such an illiterate clump of bilge off my hands.
