Trains

I like trains. I like looking out of the window into other people's kitchen windows and gardens, and seeing their washing on the line. And I like the places where, if you travel a route often, you know you will see rabbits, and maybe a fox or a heron. You don't see the same things from a road. All you see is the front respectable face of everything. And if you are map-reading, you don't see anything at all. I don't like map-reading, I always get distracted by something more interesting, and then we miss the turning, and then calamity. Wouldn't it be easier if they painted the roads the same colours that they are on the map so you could see at a glance whether it is the red road you are looking for, or just another yellow road that you've lost count of?

I've always liked trains. Because we didn't have a car at home when I was growing up, we always went on holiday by train. And days out, and days up to London, they were all done by train. So the train was always exciting, it was the start of a treat, it was an adventure. When I went away from home for the first time to work, I went by train; I went to and from university by train, sending a trunk ahead each way each time.

Travelling by car is all very well, all very comfortable, all very convenient, but it isn't exciting and it isn't interesting. I like trains.