As I open the door, French accent drift by. A man pushing a pram. There are no cars on the curb today. There are a bunch of bicycles outside the dry cleaners. There are lots of people walking past wearing backpacks. People sit outside the Mediterranean bakery speaking in Eastern European. A regular morning at the University.
I enquire about bag storage. “De’re’s noow ba’ lo’or ‘oire,” the attendant helpfully offers at the station. As he picks up his crutch to stand, I see how Robert Louis Stevenson got his characters.
As I walk along a street in Cambridge, the Australian rule of walking on the left leads to confusion of people walking the other way. Either there is no rule, the rule is in transition due to European influence, or they’re used to accommodating European pedestrians. To me it feels like a mixture of the first two, European standards quietly creeping in generationally.
There was nothing to write home about for the Cambridge Science and Technology Museum.
The train driver to London belts along in a way that would seem out of place on a NSW train.
Laptop and phone charging at every seat on the train is a treat.
Kings Cross to Euston on the underground. Change at Euston to get on the Birmingham train to Bletchley. Walking through underground tunnels is definitely on the left, walking on escalators the left, pausing on escalators is the right. (It turns out the escalator rule is left over from the first escalators where the ending platform was diagonal, rewarding those in a hurry on the left.)
The Population of Bletchley and surrounds is 287,000 which is slightly more than the population of Wollongong. It feels suburban, in a way that London, Cambridge and Bridport did not. Curved rows of houses mostly separated from each other, cut-de-sacs no shops or pubs in sight. Probably designed in a post-car age. Some of the houses feel like old Wahroonga, sweeping trees and hedges and gravel driveways.
Whilst I wash some clothes getting ready for dinner, I get an email saying that I’m entitled to compensation as my train was delayed 15 minutes. All I had to do was fill out a form. What an interesting effect of privatised trains. With long distance trains at home, you would get what you get and not get upset.
