I confess I have abandoned the train after one week. Do I feel guilt? Only slightly, though 't'is a pity as I really like trains. Not the anorak and Allan obsession - I don't know one loco from the other and life's too short to begin a study - but the experience of sitting on a moving train watching the countryside fly past. It's relaxing, therapeutic even.But the rub is it isn't as therapeutic as it might be. Trains, as I have seen last week, are inflexible, unreliable and don't go all the way. I'm afraid the car does these things so much better. I don't have to rush to the station because the train doesn't wait; I don't have to wait because the train is delayed (as it was eight journeys out of ten); and I don't have to make up the big shortfall between the station and my ultimate destination. I could suffer all these faults, sometimes gladly, but I found my quality of life suffered. I lost around ninety minutes of each evening commuting to a timetable outside my control, the day felt more like a cycle of work-commute-sleep with that all important leisure aspect shrunk to meaninglessness. Going by private means means I get back to the bosom of my home at a godly hour - ten past five to be exact. I can relax, potter about, take an evening class, all those important things that make the week something more than employment.
Sorry, planet, I did try and will continue to do so but, on the whole, I must still be mindful to enjoy life while I can.
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