Days Without Alcohol 83
I am spending Easter in the Brecon Beacons, a short drive from Cardiff a place of great natural beauty and if today is anything to go by, where they have every season of the year simultaneously. It was blue skies one minute, grey the next, then snowing, then oppressively hot sunshine, then cold winds that froze me to my marrow (I keep a marrow under my shirt at all times in case I get hungry, but it's no good to me if it is frozen).
I was hoping to go for a long walk in the hills to keep me fit, but didn't want to get buried in a snow drift, so elected instead to try out the Brecon Mountain Railway, which the leaflet promised was "One of the Most Popular Railways in Wales". Which isn't much of a claim when you think about it. How many railways are there in Wales? And excluding the main ones which just get you from place to place and are hardly ever going to be popular, what is left? And to only proclaim that you are one of the most popular of those remaining railways is either extremely modest for an advertising leaflet, or perhaps a sort of warning that those with high expectations shouldn't come along.
I think I had unrealistic expectations. I hadn't really thought about it too much, but imagined that the steam train might take me on a twenty mile journey around all the major sights of the area. In actual fact it was a straight line of about a mile in length, which went alongside a reservoir and then stopped, the engine detached, went to the other end and pulled us all back again - though there was a 20 minute stop at a cafe on the return. It wasn't all disappointment though. The train departed from a place called Pant, so that kept me amused for most of the 65 minutes. And it was cool to see a steam train and be pulled along by it.
My mind was elsewhere though. I had had a scone in the cafe at Pant (ha ha) before getting on the train. I had heard a crack as I was eating it and hoped it was just a piece of hard fruit breaking up, but feared it might be my weak tooth (already broken by
a bagel) cracking up further. Sure enough something had changed in my mouth and though I only found a tiny bit of enamel, when I looked in the mirror I saw a huge chunk was missing on the other side of the same tooth. Weirdly, but thankfully it still didn't hurt, but it was annoying to think that due to the delay in getting an appointment further damage had been done and I was and am fearful that something more catastrophic and painful might happen over the Easter weekend, when it will be very hard to find a dentist, and ruin my relaxing break. And also, where did all the rest of the tooth go? Has it just melted? Perhaps the dentist gave me a filling made out of sherbet.
I didn't spend too much time looking at the scenery because I became fascinated by a family that were sitting near me, who might have come out of a bad and slightly boring Mike Leigh play. they comprised of a meek elderly couple, a slightly aggressive and loquacious younger woman who was obviously their daughter and a slightly obnoxious boy of about 10 who said little, but shouted it when he did. The daughter was the truly mesmerising one of the lot of them because even in this quaint and charming setting she seemed on edge and cross about everything. Whilst she did coo a little over some of the scenery she was also chastising her mother for some incident that should have been long forgotten about being in a raliway station in London, where the old woman's decision to go to the toilet had meant that they had all missed their train.
The angry woman wanted to take some photos, though only had one left on her camera and then discovered that her battery was dead. This prompted a discussion about whether it was possible to change the battery in the middle of a film (which surely everyone knows that it is) and the kindly if dim grandad suggesting the woman take it to a camera shop, before being barked at a little as she had realised in the interim that it was possible to get the batteries out without removing the film and so she was able to lampoon this kindly suggestion.
After that she had another go at her mother, asking her if she had a camera. The nice lady said that she did but she hadn't brought it to the train. "Why not?" woofed her daughter. "I knew you were bringing yours."
"But you should have known my batteries were about to die," was the unreasonable response, because if anyone should have known that then it should have been the person who owned the batteryless camera.
The old people took all this well and I got the definite feeling that this was not just a woman having a bad day, but this was how she always was. She veered between this unpleasantness and trying to make the most of the day, but she clearly wasn't aware that her personality was slightly abrasive. Alas it is hard for any of us to have self awareness. I myself am relentlessly unpleasant to my parents and have no concept of what a dick I am.
Still it provided entertainment for me in the short term in what would have otherwise been a slightly dull trip on one of the most popular railways in Wales.
