Open Writing

During the weeks preceding my arrival in Austria I’d been worrying about boarding the train. My younger daughter and I had planned to travel through Austria, Switzerland and France to Provençe to spend a short holiday with my elder daughter in her lovely converted old farmhouse. I’d been looking forward to the trip for months.

Over the years, I’d made a number of enjoyable train journeys to various destinations in Europe. I clearly remembered how steep the steps into the carriages were and how difficult it is for elderly passengers to climb aboard. But as with all things, with the passing of years, things change. I’ve become less active and the leg muscles don’t work so well.

Nightmare visions of the train pulling off from the unmanned, computerized local Austrian station with my daughter and the luggage on board and me weeping on the platform unable to climb those dreaded stairs haunted my dreams. Another version had me, with one foot on the train and the other in mid-air, hanging on for dear life as the train accelerated away. With embarkation at 5 am, I knew the station would be completely deserted, and felt my fears were justified.

Time spent with my younger daughter is always wonderful, but on this visit I noticed how steep all the stairs had become. North European homes are double and triple storied, bedrooms on the second and third floors, toilets in the cellars and there are flights of stairs all over the place leading to nowhere in particular. There’s no escaping them.

Bleary-eyed from our dawn start we waited on the platform. We’d made sure we were in the correct place as shown on the composition plan, as it’s important to get it right, otherwise you’ll end up in Amsterdam instead of Zurich. Then, appearing through the tunnel was the gleam of the headlight and with a swoosh and a blast of compressed air my bête noir arrived.

My daughter quickly climbed aboard and I passed up the luggage, then with the ease and agility of several weeks of stair climbing, to my immense surprise and with very little effort, I rose gracefully to the occasion and quickly climbed aboard.

I’d done it! I was there and I’d proved all those frightening nightmares wrong, nothing more than figments of my overheated imagination. What a tremendous relief. Settling into my seat, I congratulated myself on my skill and fitness. But, as the hours passed, I realised my achievement was not mine alone. Studying other trains I noticed that construction has changed and station platforms are built differently, with most platforms at the same level as carriage floors, and the trains have more accessible entrances. Those three steep steps have been altered to four inclined retractable steps. Now it’s easier for everyone, including burdened mothers lugging children and buggies and the infirm and elderly can manage with ease.

So, maybe I’m not quite as much of an athlete as I thought. But that doesn’t matter, I made it, and we were on our way to Provençe!

Settling down, we enjoyed the view of the Swiss lakes and hillside vineyards coming into leaf in the late spring warmth. Changing at Zurich and again in Geneva and Lyons, the journey stretched ahead enticingly, and I was thrilled by the speed and comfort of the French TGV and their famous 300kms/hr, whipping through the countryside so fast that picturesque hillside villages, farms and towns pass in the blink of an eye. Photography is not easy, as even with a videocam, I doubt one could achieve anything more than a blur.

The journey was a marvellous experience, something I'd longed to do for years, ever since I’d seen a picture in a travel brochure of an elegant couple raising their glasses to one another while sitting in a glass-domed observation car, enjoying a fine meal and glass of champagne. Sadly, the reality was rather different, everybody snacking on home-prepared rolls and sandwiches and clutching their plastic bottles of water. No attentive waiter ready to do one's bidding; no restaurant, no glass-domed observation car, and certainly no champagne!

However, it was a double-decker train, very unusual and even slightly glamorous to this “hayseed granny” from deepest, darkest Africa, where rioting black commuters burn trains if they do not arrive on time on a blustery winter's night. Our countrywide passenger service is non-existent due to the enormous losses suffered by the state-owned railway company and a seeming inability to operate a profitable service for travellers with no alternative transport. Apart from earlier journeys in England and Europe in the 1970s I’ve not travelled on a long-distant train since I was a child of eight.

Once on board at Lyons, it was non-stop through to Aix-en-Provence where my elder daughter met us. She’d flown in that morning from Gatwick to Marseilles, and once the luggage was loaded we drove to the house. This I already knew from a previous holiday, and soon the spacious home was filled with family and friends, many spending a few days on their way to watch the Tour de France cycle race.

It's a charming house, with a swimming pool and attractive garden with lovely shady trees, a small seasonal stream [dry in summer] and a bassin filled with water from the seeping spring. Encircled by fields of lavender, every flower-bed overflows with mauve and purple stems clustered with butterflies and bees while white roses scent the evening air. It's everyone's picture of a romantic summer holiday home in France. Quite delightful, beautifully furnished and very comfortable.

We enjoyed several visits to the colourful local markets and some delicious French meals with simple, fresh ingredients skilfully cooked and imaginatively presented. Interesting and different, it was a marvellous experience and much enjoyed by everyone. Then, back by train to Austria and two weeks later a quick flight to Heathrow where we spent a further three weeks with the “English” daughter and her family in their lovely house in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire.

The weather was against us, as you've undoubtedly read, with floods from the Severn Estuary affecting adjoining villages and towns, and in fact, a number of business and industrial parks were without potable water for 10 days. Landlords were obliged to provide water bowsers and a man with a bucket to flush the loos of the offices every hour, and packs and packs of bottled water were shipped to strategic points by the municipal authorities. Unbelievably, when water tankers were provided at strategic points to provide drinking water for local residents, local “hoodies” [idle, mischief-making youngsters] urinated into the storage tank of one bowser and emptied bleach into another.

But the floods are soon forgotten, and bureaucratic bumbling will continue in the usual way; building on flood plains, creating landfills and sports fields out of nature's defences of marshes and wetlands, and constantly declining to implement additional service crews to maintain and update the old-fashioned drainage and sewage systems.

But, and it's a very big but.... when the sun shines it’s idyllic. Beautiful England, marvellous, unspoilt, timeless countryside. Enormous age-old trees, water meadows and fields studded with amiable sheep and cows, chalk streams fished by a leisurely angler casting a fly into the sun-dappled water, honey-gold cottages and "gastro"-pubs where prosperous and contented folk enjoy an excellent meal and a glass or two of Best British Bitter. And, for all one hears about the high rate of horrendous crime in Britain these days, there are pockets of beauty and charm remaining in many parts of the country, and when one visits these on a fair summer’s day it’s hard to find anything more appealing. The sense of proportion and comfort and the correctness of the way the built environment fits so perfectly with the scenery cannot fail to amaze. It’s a wonderful small country, but rather like living in a museum where one is forever watching one’s step.