Mini railway stuff! (blog 302)

Yesterday in the early afternoon, I did some ‘work’ (AKA watching other people work for the sake of blog material) with my dad, in a miniature railway whilst it was closed to the public. One of the first things I saw there, was a small group of workers/partiers celebrating a birthday, and eating some chocolate cake. Far from a wild party, but would you trust drunken and rowdy people working on even the smallest tracks people would later be riding on? Remember that such people are prone to pulling off ‘pranks’. What pranks could they be? Well, most of us like watching people fall over, so could the hypothetical workers make the rails buckle so people would fall off the trains?? As that was the first thought that came to mind, maybe that says a lot about me. Then again, that’s the first thought that would most likely come to Charlie Chaplin, and he seemed sane enough. I wouldn’t FILM someone falling over like he would, though. Too far. To cut a long story short, no beer for workers.

Anyway, watching people eat the cake was absolutely torturous for me, as I’m famously trying to limit my sugar intake. As Sundays are almost always the dullest day of the week for me, I later intended to get a fizzy drink as something to look forward to and to spice my life up, but cake too? Too far. I know that sounds extremely small scale, but actually, if you ration your treats, they do actually seem like more of a big deal. Just one of Simon’s basic life improving tips. I’m being serious. Still on the subject of cake, you know the phrase ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’? If I took some cake for myself but didn’t eat it as everyone else ate theirs, I could have said ‘I CAN have my cake as you eat it.’ Sure, it’s not the original phrase, but if I said my version fast enough and with a funny accent, it would sound very close. What I’m trying to say is, I could have almost made an impossible phrase sound possible. Basically, I’m looking for respect.

After only barely resisting the seemingly delicious treat, me and my dad walked around the mini tracks to pass the time as the other people continued eating. Little did I appreciate at the time, that would be by FAR the most interesting thing I’d be doing in the outing. On the trek, I was told by my dad not to go through the mini tunnel, as you can’t run fast enough away from trains there if they speed towards you, but why would anyone run a train on a maintenance day? Oh I know, drunk workers. Of course. One can only imagine the amount of covering up the venue has to do in the worst case scenario. What followed that, was me watching other people joining mini railway tracks to plastic beams. Wooden beams rot, which was the only fact my dad told me that I now remember, but I knew that, anyway.

To deal with the tedium of watching the work, I played a solo game, that I like to call ‘do it yourself darts’. It’s very simple, yet there certainly is an element of skill to it like many good activities. Like darts, you pick up an object and try to throw it at another object. The only difference is that I pick up rocks and attempt to throw them at a targeted rock, not too far away. (Unless you’re feeling adventurous and can handle more than a few metres). Unlike darts however, the rocks you throw come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, adding another level of skill to the game. If no one had ever thought to do so before, which is understandable especially in the company of others, that means I invented it a few years ago, also when bored. And if I invented it, I get to give the hobby a name. I choose ‘Wiedeball’. (As well as do it yourself darts. It has two names, which in itself is an innovation).

Later on, I thought I saw a very strange sign. I was thinking to myself ‘hang on, that says ‘faster than a smackhead’s giro’. That can't be right. No, actually that’s what it said. I don’t fully know what it means, but it does sound impressive. However, maybe something like ‘faster than a bullet train’ would be better. It would also be far less random. What if a child saw the sign and asked his parents about it. He’d be like ‘what’s a smackhead? How fast are they?’ Then the parent would be like ‘they’re very fast, but stay away from them.’ From then on, the conversation would only get weirder. If you thought watching people laying rail roads was bad enough, later on in the day, I watched two people shovelling rocks. Unlike with the more skilled work earlier, I could have helped that time, I just didn’t want to. To conclude, I did no work whatsoever, (unless you can call me sweeping a broom over a railway track for roughly 10 - 20 seconds work), I just watched my dad and the others but again, my goal was to get some blog material, and I succeeded. Even better, I resisted cake! Bye!