Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

I set off some day at the end of June, still being messed about by the Covid pandemic. Having been lodging at Nana’s, on a cold but sunny morning, only with time to consume a bowl of cereal rather than my customary Full English, I festinated to Brockenhurst station. Scared out of my wits of missing the train, stress was further jangled by the 10-or-so signs sharing the road. These signs echoed that the station crossing was closed for repairs. Hope prayed that this repair work wouldn’t have stopped the trains running. It had.

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                   When I reached the station with 20 minutes to spare – a mighty chasm of time – no trains. Silence. Crossing the walkway, I asked a guard how the heck to get to Southampton. He stated gruffly that there’d be a bus… 

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                   Tens of minutes later, the machine arrived and travelled all the schlep to Southampton. I then took the train to Exeter, got told off for not wearing a mask, put it on, took it off, took another train to Plymouth, and finally got on one of the most stop-packed trains in existence down to Penzance. How many people actually live down here? It was a surprise when someone actually got on.

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                   The arrivée into Penzance was awesome. Sun was up, a tender breeze; and the view across the boat-festooned harbour, out to a gently-waving sea, was photogenic. Not so good was getting to Union Hotel and discovering it closed. I called them and could hear the phone jangling inside. Wonderful. Having received two emails from Booking.com confirming they were open, I was annoyed.

Journeying a whole day to a locked hotel felt crap.

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                   Drunkenly forlorn, I blundered back to the train station. Pondering what to do, I met a local staring at her bike. She had a puncture, and asked if she could please use my pump. Fine. Mid-pump, I asked her if she knew of anywhere to stay. She burbled various places and was more than ready to take me to one. We kicked off.