The 5:13 from Croydon deposits me on Platform 10 at 6:04, two minutes late. To catch the 5:13 I walk eleven minutes in the rain, full of hot porridge and Vegemite toast. While the porridge cooks I organise my sock drawers. I’m filling in time since 3 am after the dramatic last day of the English Premier League.
About ten people board at Croydon and half that number arrive at the station on bicycles. Today I am neither accommodated nor accompanied by the Red Rocket. And I have made the rare decision to wear long pants and boots. And my alpaca cap. Standing on Croydon Station in the drizzle, I am hot and regreting my wardrobe.
It’s all experiment. This is my second commute to work in Bendigo after moving back to the city. Last Thursday I catch the 6:11 out of Croydon and join the 7:09 country service. This morning I am too early a traveller to be able to buy a morning paper. Nothing is open, even at Southern Cross.
Outside lights penetrate the reflection in the windows as we plough through the dark. At level crossings headlights glisten on the wet macadam. The train stops at Sunshine and St Albans, a rare thing. The conductor, a late middle-aged woman, punches a heart in my ticket.
It is still an hour before first light. The dog has been curled into a ball on the back veranda for almost two hours. His dinner, still 12 hours away, sits on the rubbish bin where Julie will find it when she picks him after work. His lead is in the bed she will pick up as well, but he won’t get a walk.
These trips will be standard fare for the next seven months, broken by five weeks in July and early August while I ride in the Alps and the Pyrénées.
Enough already.
