The journey from London to Edinburgh
The chimes of my alarm sound from my phone for all of 5 seconds before Iona slams her hand down to silence it. We never have been early risers – the only exceptions being Christmas mornings in the early 2000s. On this day, however, my newly adjusted corporate circadian rhythm is relieved to have had the extra hour of sleep on what looked to be another sunken grey November morning in southwest London. Through the small crack in my eyelids, I see above me the walls of a bedroom not quite yet moved into, painted in a thick coat of rental sanitation white. In my mouth, four strands of Iona’s hair have spread beyond the borders of her pillowcase. I cough, and I rise.
My sister and I rarely share a bed. She’s one who likes her own space. I prefer to snuggle. Such an occasion therefore is usually reserved for hotel stays and special occasions. Special occasions like today.
We both prepared ourselves for the day in a surprisingly efficient fashion. By the turn of the next hour, the four wheels of my suitcase were picking up burnt orange leaves from the pavement opposite South Wimbledon station, and I was fumbling to get my oyster card ready to head into the underground.
What followed was 43 minutes of deafening screeches, the trauma of which one can only understand if they are unfortunate enough to live somewhere at the end of the northern line. I rested my head on Iona’s shoulder, the fur of her jacket collar transforming into a feathered pillow under my head, muffling the popping in my ears. After what felt like fifty stops in Clapham later, we finally began our approach into Kings Cross St Pancras station. The gateway lacked its usual bustle thanks to our mid-morning arrival, but the queue for the Platform 9 ¾ photo opportunity was of course bubbling over.
Our train shone in that distinct shade of LNER rouge. There it stood, proudly on platform 6. The ticket may have been downloaded on my phone, but it was the 10 carriages before me that truly represented my escape. Even the departures board, filled with familiar city names spread a warmth within me. Leicester, York, Edinburgh. Homes.
Inside the train, Iona and I found our table seats in the first-class carriage. She sat backwards, watching the south of England fall away behind us. I sat forward watching the north reveal itself. The seats were a more refined colour of ruby than the exterior, and each setting was provided with its own placemat and a luxury brunch menu. More people funnelled into the carriage after us, some going to Newcastle, some to Alnwick, others to Durham. Every occupied seat was accompanied by an overhead suitcase, and in them, a little collection of life packed and packaged to support their owners’ temporary upheaval.
I have to laugh at myself a little as our train pulls away from the station and our journey out of London begins. Living in the capital had been an overwhelming experience, trapping almost. Yet on the train, it took no more than 20 minutes for the masquerade of the metropolis to fade into non-existence, and the grassy foundations of Great Britain to uproot. It’s almost whimsical that one should feel trapped at all. The world is no more than the length of a sitcom away.
One of my favourite parts of taking this journey is being able to witness the landscape change, at times quite dramatically, all within 4 hours and 31 minutes. Starting relatively south, the legacy of human cultivation overpowers the ground. Undulations of divided green dominate my view, interspersed with increasingly greying settlements. Farmhouses perch at the end of dusty brown paths, often missing the odd window, or a few roof tiles, and rusting tractors lay idle in the aftermath of harvest season.
The rubble of the train line remains constant beneath us, but every so often a flash of green pokes its impossible head through the grey stones, reminding us of who or what was there first. There is a plant, called Buddleja Davidi, that thrives on the praecipe of railway lines. It’s fairly common, if you saw it, you’d know it. From it, blooms a rich cluster of purple flowers that sprout around its branches like armour. Such a plant is well-known amongst gardeners because of its butterfly-attracting qualities. In the warmth of spring and summer, the shrubs are swarming with them, flittering about as though they were at the Pear Tree in Battersea Park on a bank holiday Sunday. To some, this plant is considered invasive, to the butterflies it is considered home. Perspective is a funny thing.
The indigo hues of the Buddleja Davidi weren’t visible on my journey up to Edinburgh today, its fragile petals were sheltering from the early winter chill. And there were no butterflies that I could see either. But that’s the thing about train travel, it is so easy for our minds to wander. To wonder what the same journey may have looked like six months previously. To remember that book on rewilding that you read a year ago and conjure up that random fact you know about that random shrub. So, I keep looking out the window, because every second that passes is a new opportunity to witness something new, and a new chance for my mind to wander down a different path.
This wasn’t the first time I had taken this train. I had lived up in Edinburgh for a year between twenty-twenty-two and twenty-twenty-three and so commonly commuted down to see friends and family members. There was one instance when I was taking the opposite journey down to England, where looking out the window had again served me well. Not far out of the city, before we reached the English border, my eyes softened once more out into the view of the countryside. The train had slowed slightly, the chugging of the wheels suddenly more rhythmic than when the locomotive travelled at full speed. It gave me more time to take in the scenery that immersed me. As I gazed outwards, I saw, for a brief and yet lasting moment, a deer. She looked like a female, fully grown but still nimble in her frame. She had the perfect foliage frame surrounding her, so that only the upper part of her body and head were visible, and the white spots in her fur, cut through the ochre in a sharp and refined fashion. Her gaze, like mine, was locked. I stared at her, she stared at the train.
She likely did not see me. I’d like to think she did, but the chances are low. All she would see was carriage after carriage, box after box, speeding past her at an immeasurable pace. The train exists in her world, I assume she will have seen one before. And yet, I’m fascinated by the idea of how she makes sense of it. What does she see as it passes by? She surely thinks not of the human beings sat within, mesmerised by her presence, relishing the fleeting experience of witnessing her. She thinks more likely of her own life, how this moving force exists as a risk to her, and what may have happened had she taken three more steps along her path.
Coming back to the journey I was on, I noticed as the train breached the Scottish border, skimming across the coastal cliffs, allowing me to watch a while as the sun sparkled on the tips of the waves. After chugging through the borderlands, she eventually reached the outskirts of the city and began her final pull into Waverly station. The iconic Edinburgh Castle nods at my arrival from atop the extinct volcano upon which it sits. This is perhaps what I love most about Edinburgh, just how warmly the natural world welcomes you in. When I was living there, my flat, a quaint tenement in Newington, nestled into the trough of Arthur’s seat, who himself, provided a gateway to the nearby Portobello beach. To the southwest of the city, the Pentlands provide an easy-to-access Scottish paradise: home to cows, lakes and waterfalls. To the north, the grandeur of the highlands awaits.
Edinburgh, by its very nature, is a wild city. And in my journey up from London, I once again felt free.
