Train trip to York

Our 9.24am train trip to York from Edinburgh was taken in the company of a host of Newcastle United fans lagering up for the big home match with Leicester later that day.  Fortunately they were in the next but one carriage, and closer to the buffet than us, should their store run dry.  Six ample ladies ensconced nearby were Eating for Britain ~ Well, it had been two hours since they last had tasted breakfast tatties and pudding.

The silver-liveried Eastcoast train terminating at Kings Cross flew by fields and stone walls at 90mph leaving M1 traffic in its' wake.  Sorry about the mixed transport terminology.  White sheep, black sheep, white sheep with black faces, brown sheep with white faces, you get the idea..., grazed on rolling and tumbling Herriot hills reminiscent of every BBC rural series you have seen.  As we slowed to navigate a rural Yorkshire siding a faded green sign suggested Hadrian's Wall was nearby.

The five nice English ladies in the adjacent seats, having exhausted their conversation, picked up their reading material.  "Well!, Who would have thought that?.  According to Best magazine, "Dawn French has a new lover!.  Pass the crisps will you Jane?."  Outside a crop of peas pumped nitrogen back into the soil, and fly fishermen in green waders cast their lines upon swiftly running shallows beneath a miniature harbour bridge.

Approaching Newcastle, fields gave way to business parks, hire centres and wasteland pile with refuse.  "Aye, thar's brass in muck!"  Vacant pigeon coops and Geordie graffiti assumed prominence as we rolled into Newcastle's outer burbs.  A host of bridges jammed with traffic crossed the Tyne just before the station.

"Controversial, Compelling, Confronting!" threatened the sign promoting football legend Roy Keanes's biography.  The same could be said for the departing soccer hooligans who yahoo-ed and kicked a Tennent's can along the platform, narrowing missing a porter pushing a trolley laden with fresh supplies of Corkers Crisps and Yorkie Bars.