Why I’ll Always Be Tempted to Leave

On Trains, Strangers, and the Beauty of the Everyday

View from the train | photo by me

Hello.

I am home.

I’m sitting at my desk, the space I so lovingly set up for myself earlier in the year. A space to write and build and connect and find calm. I haven’t sat here for six weeks and it’s nice to be home.

A dear friend remarked, just a day before I arrived home in our apartment, that I might wonder why I ever left. It’s true. But the adventure is what calls me to leave, the very tempting knowledge that I will see amazing things and meet incredible people. Or even ordinary people. Not everything has to be awe-filled and amazing. To drink a cup of tea in a tiny seaside village in Wales is ordinary. But it’s not because the beach stretches out in front of you, the wet sand and exposed rocks shining in the sun, the tide out so far you can barely see the water’s edge.

Beaches—Wales, Whitby & Robin Hood's Bay

It’s those moments that I know will tempt me away again. And again and again. Moments like the very ordinary yet extraordinary gentleman I met on the train to Bath.

He was ever so apologetic that he hadn’t booked his seat.
“I’m 79. I can’t stand for too long,” he declared. He wasn’t in our seat. Other, younger people were, who we gently told were sitting in our reserved seats, as we were not too keen on standing for two hours ourselves. He was, as it turned out, sitting in the reserved seat of the man opposite. They’d agreed to not switch seats and we were happy to share the table with them.

We got chatting, the gentleman and I. We chatted about trains and I commented on the awkwardness of British people asking others to move from seats that they had booked. They squirmed almost. He knew where I was from. As soon as I speak English in the UK they recognise the broad Australian accent, even though mine isn’t very broad. My husband, they have more trouble with.

“New Zealand?” they squint at him. He speaks a few more words. “South Africa?” No one ever guesses Finland because he sounds an unusual mix of European-English-as-a-a-second-language, Australian (because he’s married to me) and broad Brummie (because his first love is the Aston Villa Football Club).

It was the same with the gentleman and the other table companion. The surprise was the same as it often is.

I can’t remember the first question I asked him. He’d mentioned something about his days studying and a train trip. How train travel had been a joy. I asked about where he had studied.
“Oxford,” he said, quietly.
“What did you read?” I was fairly sure this is how you ask someone from one of those lofty and old places of higher education. You don’t study, you ‘read’.
“Law,” he replied, quietly. And so began our hour-and-a-half chat on his life and loves.

He had read Law and had eventually become a judge. I asked him what it was like. His reply was, “Oh, mostly domestic and civil things, you know.” He had just been to a reunion with his fellow law students from Oxford and showed me a photo on his phone of a group of elderly men, many balding, a few looking quite frail—more frail than my gentleman.

He had once driven a car from Bergen to Oslo with no brakes. It was in the 1960s and he was with his wife, and luckily knew how to slow down a car using his gears. The road was a winding dirt track for much of the way, and took a very long time, but they arrived in Oslo, alive and unscathed.

He had travelled all over Europe by train and was a Francophile, speaking fluent French. He had many favourite places and loved travelling there with his wife. He was a volunteer for a railway interest group, his passion being diesel engines, “not the more popular steam engines.” He had spent twenty years volunteering for them.

His eldest son was an adventurer. He loved climbing high mountains and going trekking. He’d overcome some difficulties as a young man and had managed to earn a PhD, something surprising by the sound of his voice. He was glad his son was adventurous and had found his way.

He loved his wife. Deeply. He spoke of her fondly and was proud of her achievements. “She was an academic,” he said, proudly. Her duties as a mother came first then she earned herself a PhD in Psychological Behaviour later in life, writing about violence in pubs and why some were more violent than others. He seemed a little in awe of this as if she had ventured off on her own into a territory he had never contemplated entering himself.
“She was asked to speak all over the world,” his love for her was evident. “And the hotel industry used her findings.”

He had never been to Finland but had enjoyed the hospitality of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. He had cycled through France. He’d visited Spain and Germany, Croatia and Greece.

After an hour and a half, he kindly said he’d be getting off at the next station. And so he did. I moved from my seat and helped him with his bag. “I might have some lunch then take the train to Northhampton,” he smiled and walked to the exit, leaving the train without me ever knowing his name.

Our chat on the train stayed with me for days. I asked him questions and his story unfolded as the train carried us over the countryside. I almost wished I’d recorded it but listening back wouldn’t have been the same. It was the gentle sway of the train, the ability of being able to shut out the busyness of passengers coming and going.

So I will happily put up with sleeping in different beds, including a couch or two. I will happily live out of a small carry-on case with only the very basics included. I will happily step out into the world, my adventurous glasses on, to be able to have moments like this one.

Stay Well,

Lisa x

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In Case You Missed It

I’ve been on here, writing away into the void, since 2019, slowly building an amazing readership. Here are a few from the archives for the newbies so you can learn a little more about me.

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A Twisted, Winding Career Path

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