*Please note: Contains adult themes and material which some people may
find offensive*.
Date: Tues 1st October 2019
Location: Grand Central Railway, Loughborough.
Specifically: Making like Captain Nemo staring intensley out of the viewing window of the Nautilus searching for the Kraken or other unpleasant sea beasties (or at least that’s what it seems like in this stinking rain!)
Retired to bed following a deep conversation with my lovely friend Rachael when I hear lots of banging around - like someone, in defiance of the laws of gravity, was physically walking on the panels and the roof of the moho itself. I made the mistake of gazing up at the skylight - never a good idea because it is way too easy to imagine something ghostly and horrible like a shrouded figure, the face of a demon or Jonathan Ross.
I took little notice of the noise at first, figuring it was probably just my next door neighbour. Until it occurred to me that I don’t actually have a next door neighbour! (yes I know I’ve said this before but after living in a traditional house for *99.9% of my life a moho takes some getting used to).
* the missing 0.1% relates to a couple of chilly evenings in the back of a Renault Kangoo van, a night in a taxi office after my ‘friend’ locked me out of my hotel room! sleeping in a tent on a football pitch and cowering in a shitty bedsit in a red light area while a group of people were threatening to kick the door in and stab me in the face. Have to laugh though don’t you?
Looking through my window I could see no evidence of a caravan, moho or even a car but then, given that there is no lighting, that’s hardly surprising. More mysterious was the fact that there is only one entrance to the station and that was locked and bolted - ironically for security reasons!
Chatted on the phone to my friend Alex - who I have known since he was a teenager. But relying on him for support is like depending on Kleenex to protect you from the embarrassment of a piss leak after a bout of laughter.
Look at this for ‘support’
Me: “Fuck there’s somebody creeping about outside” “I’m in a deserted railway station” “I thought it was neighbours until I realised... “I don’t have any” Alex: “Empty your bog over them”
See - useless - and I never learn; I could do an entire blog on Alex’s ‘Supportive comments’
OK This rain is officially getting scary now - the late (and very great) Terry Pratchett once described a torrential downpour in one of his books as “like the sea with slots in it” I can think of no better description. The fact that I’ve heard rumours about a danger of flooding in the area does nothing to alleviate my fears.
After lunch I decide to have look around the station, firstly to clear my head because I was struggling for ideas and secondly, to enjoy some of the surroundings. The latter is frequently a problem for a trader - on the one hand trading in steampunk accessories takes us to some splendid venues - Didcot Railway museum where the traders pitches were on a train, Bradford Industrial Museum trading amongst the earliest printing machines, as well as meeting steampunk celebrities like Alices Night Circus, Victor & the Bully, Professor Elemental etc etc.
But the problem is that despite all this splendour it is difficult, if not impossible to see any of it in the way that a visitor would. Sure there’s often a fair bit to see in your immediate vicinity but it’s still only a fraction of what’s on offer.
One of the advantages of living life on the road - and one of my many aims was to stay in the vicinity of whatever steampunk market I had just attended. In this way I would be able to stay and take in the culture of a location if not the actual steampunk festivities themselves. This is what I was looking for today.
Before I actually ventured out I just sat for a moment on the step descending from the moho. The weather wasn’t at its best but it was OK. As I sat I gazed out at a point about 10 yards away - a point that held virtually zero aesthetic interest consisting as it did of two virtually hidden railway tracks and a sizeable acreage of tarmac. But my fascination wasn’t based on any structure/statue/steam engine etc that it did contain my fascination was for what it didn’t.
It didn’t have the house with number 16 on its door (the home of my nasty next door neighbour when I lived in Rotherham), it wasn’t filled with their vehicles taking up every available parking space, there was no sign of a garage that hadn’t seen a car in thirty years and very best of all was the absence of the; miserable, petty minded overweight, pasty faced looking lump of shit that ever disgraced a housing estate; this nasty, repulsive and and ignorant little nose beetle who was to neighbourliness what Klingons were to running nursery’s for the under three’s.
Before approaching the gate that crossed the railway leading to Quorn and Wedgwood station I chanced upon my three neighbours - a mother, husband and a son. I say chanced upon in the sense that I was tiptoeing round the back of my moho to avoid what I knew would be a long running *conversation about trains, engines, railways, timetables, the age of steam, history of Grand Central Station and all manner of associated train paraphernalia when I heard the Mother (at least I presume that’s who it was given that her two companions were grown men with ale guts, banana chests, bandy legs and masses of facial hair) shout “ave you lost something?” I pretended I had in order to avoid telling her I was trying to avoid her and her pair of buffoons. It worked - up to a point - but from thenceforth was obliged to listen to a ‘conversation’ about trains, engines, railways, timetables, the age of steam, the history of grand central station and all manner of associated train paraphernalia.
Having said that I did discover one or two items of interest. That the station wasn’t just a museum it also ran a regular services into Loughborough and the surrounding areas! Imagine that - nipping to the shops and back via steam locomotive! I also discovered they cover areas as far afield as Swithland!! Fascinating - would be easy to get to any one of about five different countries from there like; Germany, France Italy, Austria and Lichten! (Or am I thinking of Switzerland?)
*Apologies dear reader for the term ‘conversation’ implies that the neighbours actually paused for breath to allow me to get a word in. They didn’t
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