Pause, traveller.
Though I have things to relate, particularly in regards to our pilgrimage to Ely Cathedral yesterday, I have found myself cut down by Sickness today and have thus spent much of the day prone (happily enough, I might add). But here's a wee tidbit from the trek to the eely place--one that is marginally less funny to me now (since I've finally figured out what it's saying) than it was last night, when, in disbelief that a 24-hour grocery store exists anywhere in England but enticed by its carpark's "open 24 hours" banners, made our hopeful way toward this sign:
That's "open 24 hours most days" to you, Americans. That's what the sign was telling us. We laughed and laughed and laughed--and laughed all the way over to the train station, where we discovered that our having fallen for such an improbable concept as a store open beyond 5 on Sunday had left us a 45 minute wait for the next train to Cambridge.
Strangely, no one on said train laughed when, moments before we arrived at Cambridge, the train manager came on the public address system to announce that the train would no longer proceed to London but would instead terminate right there at Cambridge. Where everyone could cross the platform to take a different train to London. As someone who would love to have even a wildly dysfunctional train service at home--one that, say, could take her somewhere she needed to be, without occasioning bizarre middle-of-night car trips into rough or semi-deserted areas in faraway cities--I felt flickers of sympathy but not a lot more as the entire train grumbled to its feet and began hauling luggage down from the racks.
Tomorrow, I'm hoping to tell you what I learned yesterday about a more profound kind of brokenness.
That's "open 24 hours most days" to you, Americans. That's what the sign was telling us. We laughed and laughed and laughed--and laughed all the way over to the train station, where we discovered that our having fallen for such an improbable concept as a store open beyond 5 on Sunday had left us a 45 minute wait for the next train to Cambridge.
Strangely, no one on said train laughed when, moments before we arrived at Cambridge, the train manager came on the public address system to announce that the train would no longer proceed to London but would instead terminate right there at Cambridge. Where everyone could cross the platform to take a different train to London. As someone who would love to have even a wildly dysfunctional train service at home--one that, say, could take her somewhere she needed to be, without occasioning bizarre middle-of-night car trips into rough or semi-deserted areas in faraway cities--I felt flickers of sympathy but not a lot more as the entire train grumbled to its feet and began hauling luggage down from the racks.
Tomorrow, I'm hoping to tell you what I learned yesterday about a more profound kind of brokenness.
posted by Dr. S at 10:50 PM
2 Comments:
Hope you're feeling better--and also that you haven't come down with the nasty stomach bug (Norovirus, anyone?) that's had me down for the past couple of days.
A 24-hour grocery. . . what a nice yet highly improbable concept! In Oxford there used to be a 7-11 (of all things!) on the distant outskirts of town that promised to be open 24 hours, and even though it was far too long a trip to actually go there in the middle of the night, it was always kind of reassuring to know it existed. I wonder if its hours were also highly qualified?
P.S. - Beware of train accidents, although they can be highly useful for faking your own death and disposing of a narratively inconvenient bastard child.
Yesterday morning, I thought that maybe it was the ugly virus--just having taken its time to hit us both. But now it seems to be all ear/nose/throat for me. Suck.
I'm SOOO glad you're reading it. Aren't train accidents great? I hope you're loving it. If I were going to fake my death, I guess I, too, would, um, go straight home in my disfigurement...
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