Transit

Arriving at Heathrow, there was an odd and familiar smell.  It was a combination of damp, mildew and "old".  It reminded me of the old hospitals that my dad used to work in when I was just a kid.  Walking off the plane and towards passport control, I was happy to see my passport included amongst the list of those that could go in the faster lane.

It was very nice to be back in the UK.  It had been five years since I had visited.  It had become a regular trip with my old job, but global pandemics and my own change in situation had conspired to change all of that.  As I walked through the airport, it was good to feel the cool air again.  I didn't have much time though.  I wasn't staying in London at this point, so I needed to get to train station.

After a quick ride on the Heathrow Express and an annoying struggle through the Underground with its maze of halls and lack of escalators, I arrived at St Pancras station.  I had only been here a few times before.  It was a beautiful station that captured the very best of British imperialism with more modern flourishes.  One thing that still annoyed me were the pianos which had been placed everywhere.  I remember when I first saw them being placed around public places in Europe.  It seemed like a great idea to encourage more music and public interaction.  These days, it just seems to encourage either terrible or attention hungry piano players to loudly bang on the keys.

Getting from Heathrow to St Pancras had been faster than I expected.  I sat in the concourse and waited.  I had my ticket booked to head North.  This was going to be another new experience.  With some time before I needed to start work, I wanted to go visit Charlie.  It had been two years, almost to the day since he had left Hong Kong and it was now time for a reunion.  Eventually I was able to board the train.  Within a short time, we were out of London and speeding up into the middle of the UK.

As we passed the various stations on the way North, I saw names familiar to me only because of my youthful interest in English football.  These names had been associated with what seemed to be distant and imposing places, so it was a strange feeling to find myself in some very small and suburban little towns.  Their global fame and influence, inflated far beyond what they could actually offer as a result of a global obsession with football.

Between each of the stations, the English countryside opened up.  It was beautiful.  It was a deep green, with only the hint of the coming winter starting to be felt.  When people talked about the English countryside, this was the image that seemed to be in mind.  I was surprised by how quickly it all appeared too.  Within such a short distance outside of London and the other smaller towns the train passed through, it seemed to immediately jump to this farmed countryside.

The distances were short.  I was still too much an Australian.  Any travel in Australia, in any direction always involves hours and hours of travel.  Even thinking back to Sydney, if I drove from Coogee for an hour, I would probably still have only reached the outer suburbs of Sydney.  Here, once you were out, you were out.  The towns became a distant memory and there were fields as far as the eye could see.