Thought for the Day

Every couple of months I take a trip to Oakham to record a "Thought for the Day" for Rutland Radio - some of those who live locally may have heard them - and in keeping with my Rule of Life I have so far managed to avoid taking my car. There is no doubt that the bus would be cheaper, but with the train I can be there and back in less time, and I can work on the way, both while waiting and while travelling. Indeed I usually write the "Thought" on my way there!

As the blog is now a month ahead of the parish magazine, I thought I'd write up yesterday's trip to Oakham as this month's blog post while waiting for the magazine to catch up.

It is a common excuse among car owners that the reason they use their cars is that "you can go when you want to; you're not tied to timetables," but while this is often true I really do not accept that it is often valid. When Rob asks me to arrange my next recording time, I simply make it a time when the train will get me there and back: that is half past any hour. That gives me time to walk from the station to the studio and time to walk back to the station to get the train back. It does not feel like a bind - half past the hour is as convenient to me as 17 minutes past or any other random time that a motorist might feel "free" to travel. Choice is greatly overrated in my opinion.

So I sat yesterday on platform 2 at Stamford station at 11:00, reading papers for a training course I'm attending soon (I already have the train tickets for that, of course, and will write about it in due course!) and when my train arrived - a minute late at 11:06, shock, horror - boarded and travelled to Oakham jotting down the ideas for my talk, ideas I'd been kicking around in my head while walking to the station. There is a refreshment trolley on this service, and by boarding the coach where the trolley is you can be sure of coffee if you want it, which on this occasion I did. 

Coffee consumed and thoughts jotted down I resumed my reading for the last five minutes and left the train at Oakham, walking to the studio across the road. 

Ten minutes later I was walking back to the station and continued the reading while awaiting the train, this is after hanging around chatting to Rob for a while. On one occasion I got back to the station to find my train back was running twenty minutes late. This is not a disaster when it happens, for along the road is the Grainstore Brewery and tap, so a pint and a packet of nuts kicks off lunchtime quite nicely while awaiting any delayed train - but this has only happened once. If there happens to be something I want to do while in Oakham (not very likely but it does happen now and again) I simply catch a later train back.

Solid reading all the way back (no, I have not finished and must complete it soon). 

When there is not pressure to get a document read, I can use my smartphone to read email and reply to urgent messages, pick up any messages left on the Vicarage phone and reply if urgent, or even relax if it has been a busy week. I seldom take my portable computer on such a short trip, but there is plenty to do, even if it is nothing. We need to rest and sometimes that is just what a train ride enables us to do - perhaps there is a Thought for the Day brewing there!

Coming soon ...

The posts in the parish magazine are now a month behind the posts here, so I shall have to adjust the way I post to the blog. Soon, though, we shall be back in Scotland, based in Inverness and visiting the far north. 

Then there is a church business trip to Derbyshire, and later another seaside holiday: this year the English Riviera, from which we have just returned.

Park and Ride by Steam!

We have recently returned from a holiday in Dorset. This time we were travelling by car, but even then it is sometimes good to leave the car and venture forth by train or bus (or, in one case, boat - but that is another story).

We visited Corfe Castle and Swanage on the Purbeck peninsula, and the road traffic there has difficulty squeezing into the small amount of land, not aided by the closure in 1972 of the branch line from Wareham. This is one of those lines which has been restored as a steam-operated heritage line, and although services do not operate (yet) all the way from Wareham, a new station has been built just north of Corfe Castle with a huge council-run car park so that a park & ride service can be offered using the steam trains.

Trains only run every forty minutes, so it is not like the frequent park & ride services we might find in bigger towns and cities, but in a tourist place no-one is in much of a hurry and the service is well used.

We turned up at Norden Park and Ride station and bought return tickets to Swanage. These allow break of journey, so we left the train at Corfe Castle and visited the castle for the morning, returning to the station to eat our picnic on the platform and then complete the ride to Swanage where we spent some of the afternoon. A static buffet car at Swanage station serves a pretty decent cream tea, too, whether or not one is travelling by their trains.

For those interested in railway history, this line does reasonably well at recreating the atmosphere of a BR Southern Region holiday branch line, apart from the rather frequent trains! It is well worth a visit, and spending some time at Swanage station, soaking up the atmosphere, is worthwhile, too. Breaking the journey at Corfe Castle, whether one visits the actual castle or not, is always worth doing. This is a lovely little place and with a train every forty minutes it is easy to adjust the length of a visit.

http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk