Scotland. It’s a flipping beautiful place. Sometimes when we get caught up in the hum drum of our everyday lives we can forget to just look around us and appreciate the incredible world that we live in.
A
few times a month I take a train from Edinburgh to Dundee. I usually
grab the train just after 7am and (understandably) I have to admit
that most of the time I either dose off, read a book or (most often)
run down my battery, usually on Instagram.
Last
week was one of those rare mornings where, waking up at 5:30am, I was
weirdly awake and ok to be that way (if you know me you will be aware
how rare this is, I am NOT a morning person). So, for once when I got
on the train I didn’t instantly close my eyes and curse the
existence of the need to function before 10am. Instead, I opened up
the kindle app on my phone popped on my audiobook (The lord of the
rings: the fellowship of the ring) and decided to have a good old
stare out the window.
As
some of you may know, the train route between Edinburgh and Dundee
goes right along the coast, past a good number of beaches
(surprisingly empty at 7am), vast sea views and on the other side
field after field of every imaginable shade of green. I got a little
bit too into the lord of the rings and staring at the fields I could
just imagine being part of that little team of 5 trying to get the
ring to Rivendell. Then I remembered that a) if I was a hobbit living
in the shire I would never have left and b) even if I had left I
would have probably tripped and broken an ankle with the first day.
Moving on..
You
know when you were a kid and couldn’t stand 20 minutes in a car
without playing a game of some type? No? Just me then. Well one of
the games we used to play in my family was spot the animal
(imaginative I know!). Basically, the rarer the animal the more the
points. This train journey would have been perfect for this game.
Obviously,
I saw cows, sheep and horses (these were in the fields not the sea),
miscellaneous birds and my favourite of all seals! Usually if you’re
lucky enough to see a seal it’s a little black dot in the middle of
the sea which vanishes just as you try to snap a picture. This time
there were little groups of seals all along the coast, drying
themselves off on the rocks. I have to say I got a little too excited
about this!
Now,
to the point (because I promise there was a point to this) I got off
that train feeling a little bit sad that it was over and vowing to
myself that I would try to look out the window a bit more. I am by no
means saying that from now on anyone on the 7am train to Dundee will
see me happily staring out the window, wide awake and enthusiastic.
No. Most of the time I will probably be sat with my head in my hands
drifting in and out of consciousness. But. I am saying that from now
on I’m going to attempt to actually look around me at the world,
not the world we humans have built up, the actual, back to basics,
green, brown and blue earth that is the only one we’ve got and
definitely worth paying attention to.
So,
and I mean this in the least condescending way, why don’t we all
try and ‘look out the window’ more often and appreciate what’s
around us. Even if it is only getting excited about some seals on an
early morning train journey.
Anybody
else been pleasantly surprised on a journey? Any fabulous memories of
old school car games?
SKx
No comments:
Post a Comment