Animal magnetism

What animal best represents your inner spirit? If you had to wake up as an animal, which one would you choose, and why? Are your two answers the same? Why or why not?

This is a bit of an irony, that LJ asks this question on the day I decide to return to blogging, and the spark being something that happened back in the dim and distant past of a few weeks ago.

This was way back when Britain was all a-freeze. And I was bored. All shopping and tasks completed, and it was still early Saturday afternoon. What's a boy to do? I was around the area of Queen Street Station, and I wondered: "is the Anniesland train there?".

Now, to fill you in, this habit started when I was doing a series of fashion shots early on Saturday mornings in the studios of Glasgow Metropolitan College. Afterwards, I wondered out, headspace high with camera and compositional language, and I needed some chill-out before re-engaging with the rest of the world. So, I walk towards Queen's Street with my Zonecard in my pocket. I know I can get to Anniesland on it.

This is a line from the upper level of Queen's Street that I discovered when between jobs, a languid two-car diesel ride through north Glasgow via Possil, Maryhill, Kelvindale and finally meeting Anniesland, where I can get the Blue Train back into town. It's a lovely slow train ride in a circle, perfect for relaxing and taking stock.

And by the time I get to it this Saturday, it's just left Queen Street. Damn and blast. Eyeing the destination boards that delivered the damning news, I notice the Blue Train line to Anniesland is just about to arrive. A plan forms in my head: do it backwards, take the Blue Train to Anniesland, you'll get there before the diesel does, and you can take it back to Queen Street. So I turn on my Doc Marten heels- admittedly harder, given that the floor is slippery with melted snow- and power downstairs, only briefly stopped by the Zonecard being inexplicably incompatible with the Queen Street ticket barriers, despite the fact that I had bought it there.

Queen Street Lower Level is noticeably busier than the usual Saturday shopping busyness, and soon I discover why: the train to Anniesland was broken down, somewhere outside Shettleston, and has been cancelled. Given that the Springburn line is already offline due to the "atmospheric conditions", as the announcer fancifully refers to them, the only remaining line is plugged up, and I'm stuck behind the ticket barriers...

Suddenly a train bullets past the platform without stopping. The general consensus in the station is that this was the cancelled train, scampering off in disgrace toward the Garscadden sheds for comfort. It's now twenty minutes I've been pacing about, and another train appears, and the announcement board says it goes where I want to go.

It feels like everyone on the platform has got on the train. We are squeezed like sardines until the first interchange station at Partick, at which point around 60% of the passengers disembark. Finding a seat and clutching to it for dear life I hear an inaudible burbling from the driver as we near Hyndland: blah blah sorry for the delay blah blah make up time. I don't care, next station is Anniesland, and a warm diesel into town.

I had an inkling of how wrong I was about 20 seconds later when the train failed to take the branch line off to Anniesland, but trundled towards Jordanhill, and worse- speeded up. Visions of accidentally taking the express to the Clyde Firth town of Helenburgh as a kid fillled my vision. The driver- now unburbly- informed us that because of time constraints, he was taking us straight to Dalmuir.

Dalmuir!??! Could my Zonecard take me that far? I flashed it to the ticket inspector, and he nodded. Phew. We speeded past stations of commuters and shoppers eying us with daggers of pure ice, until we reached Dalmuir. I gazed nervously across the platforms for a train on the other line, one that would take me back to Anniesland, expecting it not to be there. But there it was, ready and waiting. I jumped out of one train and into another as it's doors as it's piped up it's audio stabs to warn me of closing doors.

As the train started to speed back town-wards, I look at Drumchapel and Westerton, bathed in the setting sun, and I might have thought: this is quite lucky, getting this train. It's was a bit like being on a ghost train, a "rails" ride. How much I discovered when we arrived at Anniesland: I popped my head out the window, looking for the Maryhill line train, and there it is, slowly arriving at the platform. Delighted, I jump out onto the platform towards it, and into it's warm diesel cabins. Sitting down at a lone table, I get out my journal and pen, and think: this might be worth writing about.

And this is where things get strange. What I thought was a story about messed up random trains journeys becomes something else completely. Relaxing in the train, cantering up a hill towards branch with the West Highland line, snug as a bug in a rug, I look out: the left window, facing north. The landscape around is framed in bluish snow, the odd details such as dead trees, picked out in the golds of the setting sun.

Amongst them, three does, presumably from Dawsholme park, stripping the bark from a tree between the two lines. They turn around and look at me. I gulp- they can see me. And then they turn back to their favourite tree, leaving me to pick my jaw up off the diesel floor.

So, to answer the question. Well, maybe those does can answer it...