Russian Diplomats Expelled in Dramatic Support for UK. To Germany by Train.

Rhine by Kaiserswerth 

Well, it is perhaps a reflection of life continuing despite Brexit and world politics, that the momentous events of the past six days occurred in the background whilst I was on a family visit to Germany. This is what I incidentally caught had happened, from snippets of the news:

1. The EU agreed to the provisional transition agreement with the UK, though there are issues still to be resolved.
2. 13 EU countries, Australia and the US announced they would expel some Russian diplomats in varying numbers from 2 to 60, the latter by the US. This was an unexpected show of solidarity with Britain after the Skripal poisoning, showing the importance of working together - at a time where we are separating ourselves from our newest neighbours.
3. Stormy Daniels and some of her legal support are interviewed on CBS 60 minutes about her brief sexual encounter with President Trump.

I was more taken up with travelling and the visit. Going by train  might take longer, but it is a more relaxing way to travel. Punctuated by three changes and four different trains, there is the backdrop of changing scenery and the occasional conversation with fellow passengers. 

The fact that you start in one country, cross two others to complete the journey in the one with the final destination, gives me a more real sense of making a journey. 

The same journey by plane would still involve two train journeys topping and tailing the flight. The total journey time is shorter at seven hours but two and a half are waiting/checking in and out of airports. It just feels more stressful.

Travelling by car, the around 650 km journey would take about the same time as the train journey, with 7 to 9 hours of actual travel punctuated by two rest breaks, extending the journey time to 9 to 11 hours. It is tiring.

The four days were spent with my mother, food shopping, celebrating her birthday and meeting family. The baking practice over the past year proved useful. I baked two lovely moist carrot cakes, a lemon drizzle cake and a batch of oaty biscuits.

We drove to the Netherlands to visit old family friends, we'd first met them on a camping holiday in the Basque region more than four decades ago and they have been part of lives ever since. We took carrot cake and came away with chocolate and a Midsomer Murder's DVD. The gentle detective series has managed to win followers in both the Netherlands and Germany. On Tuesday, the rain cleared and we took a walk in the sunshine along the Rhine by the crossing to Kaiserswerth.

On the return journey, I missed the pre-rush hour connection to Cambridge and had an hour to kill. Coming out of the Eurostar exit, I took my time wandering around St Pancras station looking for photo opportunities. The Betjeman statue and a nearby collection of artistically designed and decorated dog kennels were obvious choices, as were the ironwork ceiling and general station space. St Pancras is the more attractive of the two when compared to Kings Cross, it's neighbour.

I'm not good at people photos but was lucke enough to capture a German couple emulating the kiss modelled by the sculptor Paul Day on him and his wife in the sclupture titled The Meeting Place. The frieze around the base of the statue also gave me an opportunity to try stretch the panorama function on my smart-phone to its limits by trying to take a panorama whilst walking around the statue.

The last enjoyable moments before the last leg home were the chat with the piano player, tinkling away on one of the two pianos in the main St Pancras concourse. He had played on nearly all of the 55 Street pianos in London. Apparently there are more than 1800 street pianos installed around the world. 

Took today to recover with a head-ache curing lie-in, tidy up the Stereoscope book to send to the printers and rescue my Camilla sourdough culture after a fortnight in the fridge.