Journey to Dundee [and back]

Not quite the centre of the earth but equally webless - at least it is at the moment since my sister's connection is broke, there aren't any internet cafes and the library has a waiting list for use of a computer (quite rightly) and I couldn't remember my sister's address off by heart to join anyway.

I didn't travel in a capsule either, but by train. However by the end of a 6 hour journey a train does start to feel a bit like a capsule.

Somewhere between York and Newcastle the frumpy conductress in her green blouse and frightfully regimented hair came through each carriage bellowing from the doorway, "has anyone seen a girl, about 14, wearing a lime green teeshirt, come through here?" Nobody had, we all shook our heads and quietly returned to our newspapers. Runaway? Got off the train at York unbeknown to her parents, escaped her dull life of boredom, and joined the circus? Got off the train at York for a quiet ciggy and didn't board again in time, panicking as the doors sucked themselves shut and the almost inperceptable movement forwards began? Locked self in the first class toilet and couldn't find the help button? We'll never know - the conductress didn't announce the outcome (sadly) and I wasn't brave (or nosey) enough to ask what happened.



The sea is dark, the sky blue. Sheep blend with the long yellow grasses, heads down. Rocks jut out into the water at the bottom of the cliff face. A tractor trawls across a brown field. The train arcs back inland passing a red brick castle on a hill.



This brief trip coincides with my nephews birthday and I am mostly concerned with baking cake and making it into a car (whole day's fart arsing around with cake and coloured icing - manage to create an old blue banger which just about fits the bill until the little people arrive and discover it hiding under its paper bag and start poking - couple of indicator and brake lights drop off before the candle thing).

Another day I have two tasks - finding the boyfiend a suitable gift from Dundee (something tartan? something Scottish? something about the Beano?) and finding an internet cafe. Unsuccessful on both counts but do see a rainbow and this house shadow or perhaps its more like a print of where a building used to stand but is no longer. A trace of a house. Important to find something to observe in order to take a breather as you pound your way up and down Hilltown. Also notice the police standing guard where someone was murdered last week (read this in a strong scottish accent - think old days of Taggart - po'liss - po sounding as in beginning of pop rather than poe as I would say it, and murrrrdrrred with rolling r's). One each in the brown stone doorways of some tenements above the shops.