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todayiamadaisyDrama, f-list! Yesterday morning I was up at an unreasonable hour to catch the early train to Melbourne with my mother and a couple of her quilting friends for fun and frolics at the annual Craft Fair. It was cold and damp and pitch black, but apart from that it was a nice morning and the trip started well. We barrelled through the blackness for about twenty minutes when there was a great THUD and the train rocked and then stopped. My mother was leaning forward and she was thrown back in her seat; the man in front of us spilt his coffee. I mean, it was hardly the Great Twenty-Ten Train Disaster. There was a baby a few seats away who slept through the whole thing. Anyway, after we stopped the carriage was silent because, mild as it was, it was still clearly not something that was meant to happen. The conductor announced that we had hit something and the driver was out checking the damage. Once he had said that, we found we could all talk again. Five minutes later, the conductor was back, sounding apologetic: the train had hit a cow and the locomotive was defective and he would organise coaches to pick us up as soon as possible.
Apart from a collective groan when he first announced it, people were quite good about it. I think because it was black outside and we had no idea where we were, we were all quite happy to sit like sardines in our tin. After a bit, the conductor came back to say that coaches were on the way from the City by the Sea and would reach us in about forty minutes. Also that, because we weren't at a platform, we would have to use the ladders on the side of the train to get onto the ground when the time came, but, not to worry, the staff would help. And that things would be quiet for a bit because he and the driver were going outside to see where we could assemble to meet the coaches. We watched their torches recede into the darkness, and the only authority standing between us and anarchy was the man who runs the buffet car. Fortunately, he kept lawlessness at bay with free hot drinks.
The conductor and the driver came back with bad news. We were two hundred metres from the highway the coaches were travelling on, but that two hundred metres comprised a muddy, cow- (and cow poo-) filled paddock. A similar distance away was a dairy (presumably belonging to the farmer whose cow we had just run over), which the buses would be able to access; however, the lane we would walk down was flooded (and they were wet to the knees as proof). If we walked down the train tracks there was a road junction, but that was over a kilometre away, which would be do-able but not ideal on a rainy winter morning and with quite a few elderly passengers. One man with a rich, deep voice said, 'Every lady should sling a man over her back and tramp across the paddock,' because there is always one who fancies himself as a wag.
Eventually we could see the lights of the coaches in the distance, tempting us with their nearness, and the conductor came back. First light was near, he said, which was true as the sky was navy rather than black and we could now see trees in silhouette, and once there was better light the driver would be able to do some emergency repairs to get us to our first stop at Terang, where the coaches would be waiting in the car park. We eventually set off extremely slowly about ninety minutes after we stopped. As the conductor walked by, one of the passengers asked, curiously rather than aggressively, why we could get to Terang by train and not all the way to Melbourne, and he said cheerily, 'No brakes.' Ah. Anyway, we got to Terang safely and onto the waiting coaches and were in Melbourne just over two hours after we were meant to get there. So it could have been worse but I was sorry we didn't get a chance to climb on the emergency ladders. That would have made this entry worthwhile.
* * * * *
Once we were in Melbourne we went to the Craft Fair, which was good. I was very strong this year and only bought three patterns: some kitten clips to put on my desk, a pincushion for my elephant-collecting mother and a monster quilt for a friend who's having a baby (I'll adjust the pattern to make it smaller, I think).
I generally think I am a forgettable and unnoticeable sort of person, slipping through life like a ninja, so I was quite disconcerted to be in the middle of a stream of people in a strange city and hear someone say, 'Hello, Alicia!' It was Marlene, the old lady who sat next to me at my Photoshop course a few months ago. So that was nice.
It's always nice to catch the train home. Once it passes the metropolitan stations, there's a relaxed attitude. Strangers saw our Craft Show bags and compared purchases. Some of them were meant to be on our ill-fated morning train and they explained that they were sent north in buses to Ballarat, where they caught the train to Melbourne and arrived only half an hour late. It turns out that our coaches were the ones that had come that morning from Mount Gambier, meaning the poor drivers had already done a two-hour interstate trip before being asked to do an impromptu run to Melbourne. A long day for them.
One woman got off the train at Camperdown and stuck her head back in to shout at a friend still on the train: 'Carly's just told me who lost on MasterChef, do you want to know?' She was taken aback when half the carriage shouted 'No!'
Back home, I met Marlene again in the car park. This time I was with my mother and it turns out they also know each other, sort of, having gone to the same quilting days. 'But I hadn't connected the two of you,' said Marlene happily. Small world.
Then I went home and watched MasterChef, which, like half the train, I had recorded.
* * * * *
My mother asked me if I could get some copy paper boxes from work to put some books in, so I went in this morning to get them. As I came up the stairs I heard Angela saying, '… and she was bed-hopping,' and Greg, our boss, saying, 'She was bed-hopping? Not him?' and then silence as they heard my footsteps on the stairs. Then they realised who I was and relaxed. I got my boxes and we had a chat and as I went back down the stairs I heard Angela picking up her story: 'Yes, that's why the marriage ended.' She doesn't like gossip, you know.
* * * * *
And if you've made it through all that, have a couple of photos of scenic Melbourne as a reward. I do like a spot of fog, but being out in it has stirred up my winter wheeze today.
They do bigger public sculptures than we do. I'd like to see the City by the Sea's hand thieves try to make off with bits of this one.
Apart from a collective groan when he first announced it, people were quite good about it. I think because it was black outside and we had no idea where we were, we were all quite happy to sit like sardines in our tin. After a bit, the conductor came back to say that coaches were on the way from the City by the Sea and would reach us in about forty minutes. Also that, because we weren't at a platform, we would have to use the ladders on the side of the train to get onto the ground when the time came, but, not to worry, the staff would help. And that things would be quiet for a bit because he and the driver were going outside to see where we could assemble to meet the coaches. We watched their torches recede into the darkness, and the only authority standing between us and anarchy was the man who runs the buffet car. Fortunately, he kept lawlessness at bay with free hot drinks.
The conductor and the driver came back with bad news. We were two hundred metres from the highway the coaches were travelling on, but that two hundred metres comprised a muddy, cow- (and cow poo-) filled paddock. A similar distance away was a dairy (presumably belonging to the farmer whose cow we had just run over), which the buses would be able to access; however, the lane we would walk down was flooded (and they were wet to the knees as proof). If we walked down the train tracks there was a road junction, but that was over a kilometre away, which would be do-able but not ideal on a rainy winter morning and with quite a few elderly passengers. One man with a rich, deep voice said, 'Every lady should sling a man over her back and tramp across the paddock,' because there is always one who fancies himself as a wag.
Eventually we could see the lights of the coaches in the distance, tempting us with their nearness, and the conductor came back. First light was near, he said, which was true as the sky was navy rather than black and we could now see trees in silhouette, and once there was better light the driver would be able to do some emergency repairs to get us to our first stop at Terang, where the coaches would be waiting in the car park. We eventually set off extremely slowly about ninety minutes after we stopped. As the conductor walked by, one of the passengers asked, curiously rather than aggressively, why we could get to Terang by train and not all the way to Melbourne, and he said cheerily, 'No brakes.' Ah. Anyway, we got to Terang safely and onto the waiting coaches and were in Melbourne just over two hours after we were meant to get there. So it could have been worse but I was sorry we didn't get a chance to climb on the emergency ladders. That would have made this entry worthwhile.
Once we were in Melbourne we went to the Craft Fair, which was good. I was very strong this year and only bought three patterns: some kitten clips to put on my desk, a pincushion for my elephant-collecting mother and a monster quilt for a friend who's having a baby (I'll adjust the pattern to make it smaller, I think).
I generally think I am a forgettable and unnoticeable sort of person, slipping through life like a ninja, so I was quite disconcerted to be in the middle of a stream of people in a strange city and hear someone say, 'Hello, Alicia!' It was Marlene, the old lady who sat next to me at my Photoshop course a few months ago. So that was nice.
It's always nice to catch the train home. Once it passes the metropolitan stations, there's a relaxed attitude. Strangers saw our Craft Show bags and compared purchases. Some of them were meant to be on our ill-fated morning train and they explained that they were sent north in buses to Ballarat, where they caught the train to Melbourne and arrived only half an hour late. It turns out that our coaches were the ones that had come that morning from Mount Gambier, meaning the poor drivers had already done a two-hour interstate trip before being asked to do an impromptu run to Melbourne. A long day for them.
One woman got off the train at Camperdown and stuck her head back in to shout at a friend still on the train: 'Carly's just told me who lost on MasterChef, do you want to know?' She was taken aback when half the carriage shouted 'No!'
Back home, I met Marlene again in the car park. This time I was with my mother and it turns out they also know each other, sort of, having gone to the same quilting days. 'But I hadn't connected the two of you,' said Marlene happily. Small world.
Then I went home and watched MasterChef, which, like half the train, I had recorded.
My mother asked me if I could get some copy paper boxes from work to put some books in, so I went in this morning to get them. As I came up the stairs I heard Angela saying, '… and she was bed-hopping,' and Greg, our boss, saying, 'She was bed-hopping? Not him?' and then silence as they heard my footsteps on the stairs. Then they realised who I was and relaxed. I got my boxes and we had a chat and as I went back down the stairs I heard Angela picking up her story: 'Yes, that's why the marriage ended.' She doesn't like gossip, you know.
And if you've made it through all that, have a couple of photos of scenic Melbourne as a reward. I do like a spot of fog, but being out in it has stirred up my winter wheeze today.
They do bigger public sculptures than we do. I'd like to see the City by the Sea's hand thieves try to make off with bits of this one.