Life on board

Marcelle best summed up the rest of the two day train journey when she described it as ‘like one of those lazy Saturdays, before we had kids.’ She was right. You knew you had to do a couple of things that day, but there was no real need to do anything immediately. Even deciding when to eat was quite a big occasion, and couldn’t be rushed. The time slowed down and took on a lovely, delicious quality of it’s own. Here are some of the things that we did, in no particular order:

Played Uno (Harry kept winning)

Played spies with the walkie talkies up and down the train

Read (Maisie: Inkspell, Marcelle: The Almost Moon, Me: Riding The Iron Rooster, Harry: Lego Instruction Book)

Snoozed

Refilled the thermos from the giant water boiler at the end of the carriage

Listened to the World Service on the shortwave radio

Gazed out the window for half an hour at a time, looking at dusty, grey towns or emerald paddy fields

Watched Maisie making up a dance routine in the carriage involving bunks (dangerous!)

Made Lego models with Harry

Boiled up noodles for lunch and dinner (just about avoided them for breakfast...)

Made peanut butter Ritz cracker sandwiches (lots!)

Did some spelling and maths with the kids (went down like a lead balloon)

It was exactly what I had imagined being on a train like this would be like and I can honestly say that when we had to get off in Beijing I was genuinely sad to leave our carriage, which would be heading back to Naning later on that afternoon.