Warning: this post contains some (I'm sorry) observations about my commute. Sorry again. I never wanted to be one of "those" people who bang on about their cramped 'n' noisy journey to work as though a) they're the only ones who experience it and b) there's nothing more important going on in their lives. But I'm not going to bang on about the cramped 'n' noisy part, OK...I'm going to do a little bit of cod-philosophising about it instead. And as we all know, nobody in the history of the world has ever done that before so we're all safe.
I can't help it. Especially since this morning, when I realised that I've started to lapse into a comfortable routine...I can now refer to my journey to and from work as 'regular', with 'my' train times reassuringly set. Heaven forfend I catch an earlier or later train than 'my' one, even though they run every fifteen minutes or so. Heaven doubly forfend if someone happens to be sitting in 'my' seat in 'my' carriage as well. I am a rather depressing creature of habit. Not a maverick; not someone who picks a different train and a different carriage every day just because (what bravery!)
I'm not the only one, though. When I get on the train at 6:11am precisely, there is a dedicated little band of people who sit in my carriage every day, too. They also choose the same seats. In fact it's now got to the point where if one of them isn't there, the journey doesn't feel quite right. Don't ask me why this is - one of them in particular is bloody irritating. He sits in the seat directly in front of mine, he reeks of cigarette smoke and every time we go past Southend Airport he ostentatiously (in my opinion) cranes his neck to look back at the planes. He does this every day even though it's dark outside and the view doesn't ever change anyway. He also carries a crusty handkerchief and every morning without fail he's noisily blown his nose in it at least three times by the time we've got to Wickford. And yet he wasn't there yesterday, and I missed him and wondered where he was.
There's also a woman who always sits adjacent to me, who puts her 'office face' on as we're rattling along. Her routine (regardless of outfit colours) is: mascara, a quick blot of powder and then a slick of very red lipstick. She sort-of irritates me as well, although I don't know if that's because putting my 'face' on in public is something I would never, ever do and that makes her a bit freer...more devil-may-care than I am (such reticence, I believe, comes from when I was a lot younger and my Nan, concerned about the fact that I might end up becoming too 'tomboyish' on account of not having a Mum around, gave me a book called 'Good Grooming for Ladies!' in the hope that it might inspire me to make an effort. This book was published in 1949 and the first piece of utterly mad advice it gave was "your face must be a glamorous theatre performance...don't ever let anybody peek behind the scenes and see how the show is put together" Marvellous isn't it?)
There's a few more as well...the mousy woman in the cream cardigan who looks like she doesn't ever brush her hair; the stocky man in the high-viz jacket who gets on at Rochford and reads the paper in his seat by the doors; the glamorous lady in the red fur coat who never gets on my train but is always standing by the coffee outlet as we whizz through Rayleigh. They're all there, and I silently tick them all off in my head as I start the day, like some sort of strange imaginary school register.
Like I say, turns out I'm a rather depressing creature of habit.
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