The guy sitting next to me is snoozing, his book Claudius the God lays untouched on the flip down table in front of him. I love those Penguin classic covers. Out of the window a very green Mam Tor glides by. My gaze traces that ridge line which I have ridden now many times in many weathers. I capture these thoughts in front of me, and acknowledge to myself that this is something I value.
As a very proud Alpkit co-founder part of my role is getting out and about around the country to visit the team in our superb stores. This currently extends north to south from Edinburgh to Kingston and east to west from Gateshead to Betws-y-coed. Fortunately I live somewhere in the middle.
Anyone into the outdoors is acutely aware of the climate crisis. We know quite often the activities we love have a negative impact either getting to or being in the nice places we want to be. Cars loaded with kayaks, trail erosion from cycling or walking, destroying mountain habitat with ski centres, the list goes on.
While we have been burying our heads in the sand over the climate crisis Covid presented an immediate problem we had to deal with quickly. Painfully it has provided an opportunity for a reset. It has shown we can make great change happen. So as I have been getting out more regularly to visit Alpkit stores I have been trying hard to change my default behaviours.
I am trying to make this work with the train, and on the whole it is going as well as I could expect.
It is taking effort. The car is a habit and I perceived it as convenient. It sits patiently outside the house and I can fall into it at any time of day, crank the engine and roll onto the motorway with little planning. The more i explore this convenience the more I question what I accepted was convenient about the car. In all honesty I hadn’t really questioned what I thought was convenient about it.
Let’s just take today as an example. Right now the convenient choice would have seen me in the car, sitting in traffic trying to get around Manchester, looking at industrial buildings and listening to Boris,s latest exploits on the radio. 7 hours of driving later I would flop fatigued back into the house. No lingering view of Mam Tor, no productivity, no article, no cheeky coffee and croissant at the station and limited interaction with the world.
It’s not going to be the easy choice, I have just noticed Trainline sent me an email last night informing me that one of my return trains has been cancelled (shame there wasn’t a push notification via the Trainline app). If the world has shown us anything over past couple of years it is that we need to be resilient and adaptable. Is it too early for my cheese sandwich?