Anyone who is following this story of the tour will have noticed there are lots of trains. I love trains, I don't love the utterly opaque ticketing system in this country, over-crowding, over-pricing of tickets/tea/mini bottles of wine; the fact one has to go out onto the moor at night and meet the wise woman in order to work find the best price; that the best price is often knee-weakeningly high..... but the experience of travelling by train, particularly through the English countryside is rather wonderful. Any context, actually, I love it: Peru, Zimbabwe, Russia: consistently touching, exciting and relaxing.... And look! Those are some of the places to which I've travelled. I am so cool.
It is lucky that we love trains, given just how many separate trains rides we will have been on by the end of this: somewhere in the twenties, with me doing two more than Bartelt. This is because, between our trips to Newcastle and Oxford I head home for a couple of nights at my mother's place as my cousin is getting hitched and having a small reception at my mother's house.
My cousin James was a high-energy, deeply inquisitive little boy. He was five years younger than me and I used to look after him, as I did his two brothers and our two other cousins. Five little boys. James is still fives years younger than me, but has progressed to looking after himself, indeed, has found Neil to help look after him. It's a really wonderful day: I am amongst my marvellous extended family, from whom I derive endless pleasure and support, as well as irritation and confusion, of course: they're not super-human, after all.*
At the wedding I get to know Neil's mother and aunt a bit – I've never met them before – and it's lovely to discover what interesting people they are. Yes, I'll share James with them, that's fine. There is one highlight, though, which stands out in my mind as I sit on the first of the two trains which will carry me to Oxford and the next two gigs, and it is Neil's speech. I confess I've not ever thought of Neil as a public speaker. I have thought of him as more at home with the written word than the spoken and as more eloquent about dungeons and dragons than about love, but his speech was lovely. And good. AND funny. Not only was there his love for my cousin, and the specialness of their friends, and what this all means to him, but also the difficult child/teenager he was for his mother. It sounds like he was pretty difficult and, as he speaks, his mother looks as if he was, indeed, deeply difficult. It's kind of a public apology, actually, and all genuine apologies have to contain respect, but this one is dripping with love. Not the cloying (for jaded old moi) romantic love I associate with weddings, we-were-meant-for-each-other-I-knew-the-moment-I-saw-you-I-was-no-one-before-I-met-you claptrap, hawked around by every bride-cum-groom... But a frank, mature love which embraces us all in its honesty.
I go up to him later and – being me – tell him I didn't expect either his eloquence or his easy public-speaking style. Being me, I apologise for underestimating him. Other people might have left it at a simple and heart-felt well done, but for some reason I have to go that extra step and probably become offensive when I am trying to pay a large compliment. Neil's a very good egg, though, and seems to take it all in very good heart.
As I sit on the train, I go on to consider the issue of civil ceremonies themselves... I have referred to this day as a wedding and no one seems to flinch or punch me when I reveal the protagonists are both men. I know there are people who are troubled by homosexuality, I mean, I understand that these people exist, but I genuinely can't imagine why it causes anyone a moment's distress. Obviously, there are lots of things about other people's relationships about which I do not want to hear, but that's got nothing to do with their gender. In fact, I'd rather hear about the ins and outs of a gay couple – literally - than the remodelling of someone's roof space or landscaping of their garden. There are as many relationships as there are people to have them. I give up trying to understand what's so disturbing about them and conclude it's simply that some are obsessed with what other people get up to when naked. FYI, on this tour, when naked, I have usually been rooting through my rucksack trying to find clean pants and/or my deodorant salts: the only necessary items to begin a new day.
*Neither am I.
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