Follow up and Follow Through!

Retirement is such a busy life, I'm not sure how I will cope with it.  Much of this week has been a follow up of last week; very little new ground has been trodden.  Starting my narrative where last week's ended, I enjoyed my time at the Liberal Democrats' Regional Conference.  It began with coffee and croissants for new members so that we could be given a brief introduction to the Party.  I could have done with a bit more historic/structural info, but I realise that's not everyone's cup of tea.

As I was getting my coffee I heard a familiar accent; I looked up and saw that the woman standing opposite me - who had just replied to her husband - bore a label 'South Norfolk'.  A pleasant, if brief, exchange followed in which each of us discovered that the other was from Diss.  As well as the inevitable minutiae of constitutional amendments, the day also included some interesting speakers, including the elected Mayor of Bedford, who outlined some of the achievements he has pioneered for his community whilst holding a post of which he personally disapproves!

At the conference, a collection was made to support the concluding phase of the by-election campaign in Witney, to which I also referred last week.  The combination of this collection and news of the campaign still passing my eyes via Facebook, was beginning to create doubts in my mind: guilt that perhaps the declaration that my involvement was complete had been a bit premature.  Then on Monday evening (while I was taking a night off from bellringing practice because of a slight stomach upset) came a phone call, thanking me for my efforts and asking if I would possibly be able to help on polling day.  Having ascertained that, contrary to my intuitive expectations, there would be some clerical activity with which I could engage, I determined to go along yesterday after all.

It was a long day, partly because I'd left home earlier in the morning than last week, but then, after getting home, I'd felt unwilling to leave my computer screen and go to bed until well beyond the close of the polls, still reading the various posts about what was going on there.  I won't bore you with the details (readily available elsewhere), save to say that our candidate came second with a 19.3% swing, the greatest for about twenty years, I believe.

Today's adventure was the recovery of my motorhome after securing a trouble-free MOT certificate and undergoing a habitation service.  I began by repeating the double bus journey I'd rehearsed last week.  As the sun began to shine, I enjoyed the ride, and my mind began to wander back through the years.  Seated high above the road, and without the need to focus my attention on where I was going, I could admire little facets of the experience unique to that mode of travel, or that I would miss in the car: the lake that, until last week I didn't know existed and a charming thatched cottage by the edge of a now cleared cornfield.

The passengers, too, were interesting.  One in particular I recalled from last week's exploratory trip.  He was only going as far as the next town but, in this short journey, spoke courteously and profusely to each passenger in turn, using the same expressions over and over.  I could imagine that, for some people, this journey might be the highlight of their week - an image based, I admit, on the recollection of aunts and uncles who used to visit my mother in my childhood, coming into town from the outlying villages on market day, the only day there was a bus service.

The two bus journeys took me to Bedford, where I walked comfortably from bus station to train station.  Then came problems.  Convinced that I'd missed the first alternative albeit only by a minute or two, I followed signs for the second.  This train was bound for Brighton, whence I would alight after only two stops, to be collected by the engineer whose depot is about a mile away. I made my way over the footbridge to platform 3 as indicated and waited while other trains came and went.  Then came an announcement that this service would today leave from platform 1.

I trudged back over the footbridge, and smartly onto the waiting train.  The doors closed and safety announcements were made.  There was no movement.  A hesitant driver then announced that he had just been told that the Brighton train would now leave from platform 3 after all.  We all trooped back, boarded the train that was now there and were soon speeding through the countryside.  It all went just that bit too smoothly, though, as first one, then two stations were passed through, and then a third, too, before we stopped in Luton.  I emerged somewhat bewildered and explained to a member of staff what was happening.  He took this quite calmly and indicated that the train now approaching from the opposite direction would take me where I wanted to be.  I was the first of quite a few with the same problem, it seemed.

Thereafter there were no further hold-ups, and I was back home by lunchtime and could begin to pick up the threads of 'normal' life after a day and a half 'out of the office'.  One aspect of that normality, going back to my opening remarks about newly trodden ground, is the start of work on the crocheted chair cover.  While I don't intent to bore my readers with a weekly report of progress, let me simply announce the completion of the first six of over 400 little squares.