The Gingerbread House

Today I began my bi-annual personal pilgrimage to visit the oracle. It always follows approximately the same routine. On previous occasions I have thrown in one or two extra stops along the way, but have since found that in these circumstances, familiarity is comforting and change tends to induce anxiety, so I am learning to avoid it.

Because of this I take the bus and not the train. Fond as I am of trains I find that they cause me more anxiety than the bus. Are my bags safe? Was the train supposed to stop there? Are we now running late? Have I missed my connection? Is this the right platform? Is this the right train? Whereas the bus I know; put the bag in the hold, get on the bus, look out of the window. That's all there is to it, oh, and don't forget to go to the loo first. For reasons I do not comprehend, the buses run exactly on schedule and journey times never vary. You would expect that to be easier to achieve with a railway than a vehicle sharing the highway and its series of toll-booths with the general public, but strangely this is not the case.

This is the railway station. It's prettier than the bus station so I took a little swerve to blip it. Possibly difficult to believe that this and this lie behind it's fairy-tale frontage.

And fun to find the gate unlocked so many portraits taken of individual tank-engines :-)