Today’s song is called Trains by the brilliant Porcupine Tree. This is a beautiful and thought-provoking song written, of course, by the amazing Steven Wilson.
You may initially think the song is about trains but there is much more to it than that. I think it’s a song about summer love and childhood with trains providing the hook for the memory of long summers past.
As I sit here typing this post in the deepest darkest depths of winter I long for sun and summer.
January and February are the worst months of the year for me and when they vanish I usually celebrate.
December is actually cold and dark too but at least we have Christmas to raise our spirits and make life enjoyable. Remove that and you just have cold, dark miserable January. It’s dark in the morning when I go to work and dark in the evening when I get back. The only daylight I see is through an office window so my daily two mile walk at lunchtime is just that little bit better – that is unless January weather has kicked in and decided to drop snow or what seems like the entire Atlantic Ocean on my poor head as I navigate the cold streets.
These two awful months are the low point and I actually start to feel slightly depressed. I don’t suffer from depression but somehow the dark grey skies and freezing weather haul my usually happy demeanour down towards despair.
However, I’m nothing if not optimistic.
I usually try to arrange a couple of things to make January a busy month so that I can take my mind off the negative aspects that January and February force to the surface. For example, I have a couple of gigs lined up and I am enjoying pouring my thoughts out to the world in a daily blog, as rubbish as they may be. I also have a trip to London arranged and a weekend in Chester enjoying an engagement party for some friends.
I will get through this with flying colours and as soon as the weather warms up and the buds appear signalling the arrival of spring, I shall smile a lot more.
And then summer will come with its wonderful long days.
Mind you, some British people may scoff at that last sentence because although the days are long, the weather doesn’t always play along. I don’t care because summer also brings with it the holiday season where Mrs PM and I will leave Britain’s shores to enjoy a break in places we know will be sunny and beautiful.
This year, we have a couple of holidays booked already and others planned.
For example we are visiting our friends in Abu Dhabi in April, taking time out to go to Dubai for a couple of days. In June we have booked a week in Corfu in Greece with my two lads. Later in the year we off for a weekend break in Madrid with friends before finally heading to Italy somewhere in September hopefully.
When I wake up tomorrow on a cold miserable January morning I shall subconsciously counting down to when the days warm up and grow longer and imagine myself walking around the English countryside on a sunny day or visiting a foreign city in a warm climate or perhaps even strolling along a beautiful beach with the sea lapping up to the shore.
I’ll get through this – I always do.
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