I recommend today's Free Substack, which is something different. Sort of. It's up at Ten AM. It was written on October 17, after arriving home. The following was written on October 15.

It takes two days to get home. I start from the platform above, at Darsham.

12:50 Clattering along on a rural line, ca-cunk ca-cunk ca-cunk. Wan fields and bare branches slide past. It is a “soft day,” as I’m told the Irish say - overcast, with a barely perceptible mist.

The next stop, the familiar recorded voice just informed me, will be Saxmundham. Arrival at Ipswich will be at 1:33. The train is almost empty - just 2 people per car, staring with morose duty at their phones. The view outside doesn't interest anyone. Suffolk has no more surprises.

12: 55 Stopping at Saxmundham. Looks like seven people boarded. I hope there’s not a loud party of four to take the adjacent table . . .

No. Whew. Should I eat some peanuts? Not hungry. Haven’t been hungry for days, really. Breakfast was a rote duty, but I enjoyed getting up and making it myself in the kitchen. British eggs are better than the ones I get at Target. I should move here and just eat British eggs the rest of my life.

And drink wine! I'm not a big wine drinker. As Christopher Hitchens said, I'll take a drink if I have to, but I haven't been an early-evening tippler since DC, when the whole bureau would go down to drink whiskey. Here, in violation of all personal rules, I had a glass of wine with everyone in prep for dinner. Fantastic meals. Astrid can produce a feast out of nothing. Oh it’s just some Italian kale crisped up in olive oil and balsamic. I would never think about crisping up some kale, Italian or otherwise. I should move here and drink wine and crisp kale.

Someone in the carriage is having a speakerphone conversation. Sigh. This is a plague and happened on every other instance of public transport. No one uses headphones. The only thing worse than hearing one side of the conversation is hearing both sides.

There’s a line I might be able to use some day.

Good enough morning. Slept about seven hours, a record. It’s been five hours at the most, with an interval of ceiling-staring before I give up and get up and click on the kettle. Made the usual breakfast in the kitchen before anyone was up - well, Denis was up, but he was off to the sea for the morning dip. Astrid and I took poor blind Mabel (last night when Denis was trying to get her to go before bedtime, I said “There are none so blind as those who will not wee” and he pretended to be amused) for the morning walk, the loop through the village. We passed one of the most important landmarks of my life:

Really. Palmer’s Lane, if you want to visit some day and pay your respects. It’s where I laid on my back and listened to Mark Knopfler Local Hero music and looked at the millions of stars. It was the summer we sent Natalie off to Brazil after graduation, and I had just thought, during that long aching goodbye month: just get me to the Anchor. And I had got to the Anchor and had my pints and at the end of the night laid down and looked up and felt that entire chapter, the best years of my life, close for good. It’s never the same after they leave home.

That’s my problem, perhaps. I am too fond of same.

1:11 We are now approaching Melton. I keep hearing someone else’s phone ding! with a message alert, and wish it was for me. Or I do I want that? Depends. Even numbered hour, or off? AM or PM?

Daughter hadn’t responded to my last few texts the previous evening, and that’s fine; unless she has a head of steam and really wants to talk about something, she can be a sporadic respondent. She is excited about coming to Walbers for Christmas. That’s the plan. That’s the plan. Get me to the Anchor, once more.

We are now approaching Melton. I am having an apple. Just had a conversation with a fellow about my accent. Businessman, cheery sort, and we both engaged the conductor with details about the train change. Good news! No Switch. It’s just Platform 1 to Platform 2, no dragging bags over the tracks.

Hey, this text is for me. Heart leaps. It is . . . ah, radio show, wanting to know if I want to come on and talk about Diane Keaton for the Tuesday segment. I stared at the text with dumb shock: this is from old life, right? Do I have to do all the stuff I did? Are you kidding me?

But considering doing the show if still awake.

Ding! Another text. I’m in such demand. Ah. Astrid reminding me that it’s not a difficult Ipswich Switch on the way to London, but the challenge is getting to the loo in time before the train arrives. Oh great thanks for putting that in my mind, because it’s all the way at the end of the platform.

AHHH IPSWITCH ALREADY

1:50 Now on the Ipswich train. One leg down, two to go. Tea cart coming through. Bit more service on the Ipswich line.

2:39 The Tea cart never came past. Must have been for posh class only.

We are approaching the end of the journey.

9:07 At the hotel. Don’t have a picture of it because the habit of documenting my life seems absurd now. I had some high-flown idea about assembling a useful record of How Things Were And How Things Looked for some future use by someone, but I’m sorry, posterity, you’re on your own. I thought my daughter might watch it someday. I’d be fascinated by a quotidian record of my parents’ every day life. But ah well.

It wasn’t vanity. It was anticipatory archeology. Is that pretentious enough? I guess I meant to leave something that could be uploaded to archive.org as a reference for people in 25, 50 years. Because the banal or ordinary or the everyday doesn't get preserved as it should.

Anyway it’s the same picture I probably posted last summer, when I was staying here before a flight, except the room is flipped. This is the Holiday Inn, which is in a building that also contains a Crowne Plaza, the more expensive option. It’s capitalism at its finest, and you know I mean that as a compliment. They share a bar and restaurant and fast bistro and lifts, but one side is painted a different color because it probably has complimentary mints and a fridge.

Dinner: salmon on a bed of boiled spinach, truffle mashed potatoes. The same thing I had last time. There it is again: I like the same. Well, it's the lowest calorie option. Everything else is 1140 or 1270 and costs 30 pounds, because it's a hotel. Thought: Natalie and I come here for Christmas, we come here the day before the flights, we we tube into Kensington for Dishoom. This will happen. Anyway, I remember how much I enjoyed the salmon before.

The waitress noted that I hadn't eaten all the spinach. You should eat your greens she said in a chastening fashion. I smiled and mentally zeroed out the tip. Ordered dessert but it took forever, so I got up and went to the register to check out. The waitress came over to say the dessert was coming, but I said that’s okay. It’s been ten minutes. I’m off. After a few minutes the waitress came over to where I stood and said it had arrived, if I would just go back to my seat I could have some delicious vanilla cheesecake, but I stressed again no, I was done, and wished to leave. The manager appeared and brought the dessert to me where I stood by the register and asked if I did not want it, or whether I wanted it boxed to take up to my room, and I had to tell them all that the time of dessert was over and we will speak no more of it.

I went to the bar and had a Four Roses while typing out checklists and things to do. There were a lot of things to do.

Over the ocean. Up at 6:45 and down to buffet breakfast. Now we’re talking. Stiff eggs, friends. We are talking stiff eggs. Hash browns in the familiar triangle, sausages identical to the Kensington variety. British bacon, which its to say, bad bacon. Up to the room: stuff and zip, and out. Down the lift, across the lobby, up to the Liftbridge level, three minutes stride, lifts down, Elizabeth platform, and clatter-rattle to Terminal 3, lift up, corridors corridors twisty tubes, escalator, outside: brrr - drag bag to T3, wondering about the length of the check-in line, seeing silhouettes that betray nothing, then THE MOMENT OF TRUTH as I rise into the check-in hall and see how long the line stretches.

There was no one in the check-in line. Fifteen agents and a mile of queues roped off, and no one. Took five minutes to drop my bag, and then I went outside and sat for half an hour, listening to Bach and smoking a cigar. I was very content to sit outside on the cold stone bench and listen to Bach and smoke a cigar.

Security took forever, since my bag was set aside for additional inspection. Given all the wires and batteries and such, I should certainly hope it would be. Every time: “Do not pack lithium batteries in your checked baggage. Also, why are there so many batteries in your carry-on?” Used the loo, which had a soundtrack of Claire de Lune, not something you really associate with splashing and hand-drier noise, then went to Caffe Nero and found one of those rare seats-with-tables. Saw one of those "hey, it's you!" surprise meetings you see at airports when old friends run into each other. Thought about how I ran into Miles and Barbara here the last time. I know ten people in England and I run into two.

When I finished my coffee it was family souvenir time. Browsed through nice shops I'd not frequented before. I saw a clever coffee mug from Harrods, and I thought that would be good in the new place, wherever the hell that will be. A sign. A signifier. The usual tea for Wife, but this time it was Harrods branded, and it came in a Special Bag.

On the way to the gate I was hailed by name, and it was the mom of one of Natalie’s oldest friends. Grade-school to high school to beyond. In fact, Natalie had stayed with them in NYC just a few months ago. What are the odds? She was taking the same flight back, so we had a brilliant chat for an hour or so.

Had a lot to catch up on.

Now we're about three hours from land.

Again, I recommend today's Substack, which is something different. Sort of.