Winter Encounter -
Florence Richings Surgenor

Fiction

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Time to go back to Glasgow. I hurriedly get dressed and stagger down to breakfast. The hotel is attached to a Leisure Centre and I want to have a brief swim and visit the Solarium before departing on my journey. I have to come back to my room to get ready for the trip back. I am surprised, I am hungry: the array of cereals, fruit juices, fresh fruit tickle my senses. The smell of bacon eggs, black pudding, sausages, and tomatoes. I am now starving. I settle for grapefruit juice, bacon, egg and fried bread. I mumble to the smiling waitress, “Toast and tea, please.”

I must look awful. I have remembered, I have not combed my hair.

With a jolt it comes to me, the end of my holiday. For the first time I look out of the window, taken aback by the blaze of sunshine. The snow is four inches deep.

I blink and stuff the last piece of toast into my mouth. I have got to get to the leisure centre before the sun goes away and the snow melts. I have got to get a suntan before I leave.

The taxi is ten minutes late but so is the train.

The train is warm, with a buffet service. The lad opposite me has a large black scruffy dog, which immediately settles down by his master's feet with his muzzle on his Doc Martens boots. The train is smooth: chickaty-chat chakaty-chat goes the engine. It rocks gently.

The ground is thickly covered with snow. Spangles of glittering branches cover the forest of small fir trees. The sky is deep blue, the sun shining. The scene is so beautiful. The mountains or my left they, too, did not expect a beautiful day in February.

The train says clickety clack, it sways and I feel caught up in its hypnotic spell. We now pass Spean Bridge, its swollen torrents coughing and spitting out spume over and under huge boulders. We pass by a dam, the water now so calm and smooth I can hardly believe I have left those bad tempered waters behind.

The weather is still calm, not a breath of wind. The snow hangs motionless suspended by some enchantress who has waved her magic wand stilling anything that dared to move.

There are white fluffy clouds lazily gazing down at the winter wonderland, holding their breath not to break the tranquillity of the day. We reached Corrour, the summit. A herd of stags snuffling into the soft snow for last years heather stumpy roots. Rannock Station stumbles into the warm winter scene. A large hawk is seen gliding along beside the train, no wind, he turns on his side and glides slowly overhead.

The train passes the bridge Orchy then we meander along to Upper Tyndrum. The river sparkles in the icy air.

Transformed to stone the spell has transfixed its movement. As the train turns the corner we come into Ardlu station. I sit bolt upright, shocked, as now the sunshine blinds me. Banished are the jewels of winter, the snow has suddenly turned the winter wonderland into black twigs, and the snow is sparse, the bracken showing. I must travel on to Glasgow leaving behind the shattered spell of a perfect journey.

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