In Context

Rob Redman, founder of The Fiction Desk, has been asked to guest edit this month's blog for Context Travel, a 'network of architects, historians, art historians, and other specialists who organize over 300 different walks in 15 cities around the world', including Rome. He's exploring the relationship between travel and literature and he asked me if I'd like to talk about my experiences as an expatriate author. I was delighted. You can see what I said here.

The Pantheon (illustrated left) isn't mentioned in the article and doesn't feature in any of my fiction either. Which is odd, because it's my favourite building.

A field near Derby at 7 am

Travelling

Travelling

It happens so rarely, I feel I ought to share it with you. Earlier today, I travelled from Rome to Birmingham (which isn't the part that's rare, so keep reading) and the journey went smoothly. Not relatively smoothly. Smooth in an absolute sense. At the moment, no airline company has accountants that can make sense out of a direct link between the two cities, so travellers are forced to find more circuitous routes. This is increasingly common; a friend of mine is about to fly from Rome to Bournemouth via Gerona as though it were the most natural thing in the world. So each time, with enormous effort, I find new ways of getting from A (Rome) to B (Birmingham) and back.

This visit, the cheapest option was Swiss (ex-Swissair), via Zurich, incidentally one of the most attractive airports I've ever seen. I've done this before, and enjoyed certain aspects of it very much. After a hundred low-cost flights the simple fact of being offered a free coffee and croissant and a piece of chocolate with the letters SWISS embossed on it made me feel as the Queen must have felt when receiving a personal iPod from Obama. Finally, I'm worth it. But it doesn't quite compensate for the manic rush from one terminal to another in the 45 minutes deemed sufficient by Swiss, with a Security Control, like Cerberus, in the middle. Today there was a man with a head shaped like Fester (Fester's head, that is) and the most charming, desperate, arm-waving way of saying No you must make the queue HERE I've ever come across.

In the past, I've missed more connections than I've made, often because of 'technical problems' at Rome's Fiumicino. Zurich airport, as I think I've said, is lovely, but five hours there bites significantly into a weekend visit to a place that isn't Zurich airport, that isn't even Swtitzerland, wonderful though it no doubt is. Today, though, we left Rome on time. We arrived in Zurich slightly before time. Fester notwithstanding, I passed through Security Control (a second time) on time. A slight hitch occurred when a passenger with special needs had to be disembarked from our plane before we could board it. As far as I could see, and judging from the limousine with the number plate SWISS ONE that carried the sheikh-like figure off, the special needs were closely linked to significant wealth, but Switzerland has always had a special understanding of the special needs of the rich.

Still,we made it up. We landed on time. I went through the fabulous iris-reading thingumajig at Birmingham airport and IT WORKED. The shuttle to the station was waiting for me, the train I had to catch gave me just the time I need to make a very satisfying call (of which, more news anon). I even had the right change for the bus that brought me, triumphant and ON TIME, to my destination. I feel blessed.

And so, two countries away from where I woke up this morning, to bed.

Travelling

Sezze Romano

The post below was triggered by this photograph, taken a few days ago at the station of Sezze Romano, a few stops up the Rome line from Fondi. The idea was that I'd build your expectations and then deflate them with this piece of non-lyrical graffiti, found in the waiting room. So much for the birdsong option, I thought. But where's the fun in that? I have a heart too.

Adlestrop

Edward Thomas was right. There are few places more evocative than a small country station in the summer, and those countries that still have them (stations and summers) should count their blessings. Not all stations possess the magic, of course. They need a few details to make them perfect. There should be a bar with a blind made of faded plastic strips at the door to keep out flies. The blind, though, should be knotted a little back on itself, so that one or two flies do penetrate the semi-darkness to buzz around the scuffed plastic dome protecting the last third of a crumbling sponge cake. There should be no other food of any consequence - it's too hot to eat. The light outside the bar will be intense.

Animals should be present. Ideally, a dog of indeterminate breed will be lying somewhere inconvenient, across the doormat or halfway beneath one of the three zinc-topped tables squeezed under the shelter of the station eaves, each with its plastic ashtray advertising Crodino or Dubonnet. If the dog's small enough, it will be curled up, nose to arsehole, on one of the chairs, ear cocked, pelt marked by the odd feeding tick. It will have a collar, but no name tag, and behave as though it belongs to no one. Failing that, a cat.

There will be no announcements, but the barman, a middle-aged man in pressed black trousers and a vest, will have all the information you need. The coffee will not be very good, but may come ready sugared. You will drink it slowly, staring out to where you have left your cases, drunkenly heaped against the base of a cast-iron lamppost. There will be two platforms, the one you use when you leave and the one you will be brought to when you return. The only way to get from one platform to the other is to cross the track or to take the train and let it bring you back. Sometimes, if you're very lucky indeed, you will need to shoo chickens away as you do so. The train will always be late, sometimes by hours, and you will be angry, but deep-down you won't care because you have already arrived, without knowing it, and no other place on your holiday will stay with you for as long as this station does.

Travelling

Travelling (from Tucson)

Travelling (to Tucson)

Guess...

... where I am. I'm sitting at a Mexican desk with the sun pouring in to my right. I can see palms from the window, a lemon tree in the neighbour's garden, reddish roof tiles, blue sky. There may be jackrabbits in the garden. My eyes are tired from being awake too long in recycled air. I'm feeling very relaxed and happy. I have a Glenn Campbell hookline running incessantly through my head. The picture may help.

If you know, don't tell.

Travelling

Coming back to London after Christmas, Jane and I were forced by engineering works on the lines to change at Birmingham. Not just trains, but stations. We had to cross the centre of Birmingham on foot, from New Street to Moor Street. And what an odd place the centre of Birmingham has become, part Blade Runner, part amusement park, part architectural folly, not at all unpleasant, but utterly deracinated, as seems to be the fashion in post-Gehry city centres. Moor Street station, on the other hand, was a rooted joy, and it didn't even feel that refurbished. It felt as though people had simply kept it clean and in working order for all these years. Even the train to London, which took only fifteen minutes longer than the usual Virgin connection, came from an epoch when trains were designed to provide their passengers with decent window space and relatively roomy seats. Unlike the various Pendolinos employed by Virgin, which look more like bloodied suppositories than anything else and provide half the space of their Italian counterparts.

Travelling

Hackney Downs station, moments after being told that, due to points failure, no trains will be entering or leaving Liverpool Street Station.

Travelling

A cold June day in London

Travelling

Travelling