I was on the train this morning, with this ticket sticking out of my bag, when I noticed the description, which I’ve never spotted before:

Adult: one Child: nil

It sort of reminded me of a footie score – a bit like Tottenham: 1 Arsenal: 0 (we wish) and I thought the description could be thought of as leaving much unsaid – it could be a sort of points scoring thing like a Dad making sure he wins a game with his child despite it being kinder to let the youngster win (or is it?). It could be a sad reflection on me as a withered(!) middle-aged childless woman or even a simple statement that it’s better to be a grown-up……. though with the stresses of being a grown-up I can’t imagine that to be true. Of course, in reality, it’s a simple note to the ticket inspectors saying that I’m a lone traveller.

Travelling by train is a wonderful source of material for a would-be novelist like me though and that’s something I’m acutely aware of as I earwig people’s conversations and spy on their computer screens and text messages from my seat – no-one ever thinks people could have such good eyesight as me and this fact has come in useful on many an occasion and not always to my benefit (like the time when I spotted, upside down and from a good distance on the other side of the desk a few years ago, that my boss had offered a job to an inexperienced person at the same salary level as mine when I had long term experience of the job – gggrrr – I never forgave him for that and moved on soon afterwards!)

I’ve heard today a woman talking to her husband-to-be about spending a small fortune on a wedding dress because ‘she’s only going to do it once after all’ – ah the innocence of youth! She also proclaimed that she was really looking forward to getting married because she was going to have the party to end all parties as her hen-night. I’m not sure how much she even considered the ‘being married’ bit of the equation! She was talking so loudly that it would have been impossible not to hear her from four or five rows behind her or ten rows in front.

A tall, rather beautiful red-headed woman in the seat in front of me was writing poetry on her laptop and it was clear she was a ‘mixed up kid’ inside because it was rambling, obtuse and well, to be frank, rather boring – and unlike yesterday, I was fairly sure it was an original piece!!!

All of this will provide me with material for when I eventually get enough time to write that book (and assuming I’ve got what it takes both to stick with it and make it interesting to others) I’ve got in my head. Which may be sometime when I’m about 104 at this rate.

Last year, I was in much the same state as I'm in now - but now with some hope for the future.....but last year's pic was far superior because I had a studio then rather than a grab shot on a train.