Freight is great
Driving to piano lessons, we cross the railroad tracks. If we’re lucky, the gates close and we wait, windows rolled down, both thrilled by the sight and sounds of the passing train.
“Ooh, it’s a cargo train!” Dominic squeaked on Monday.
“A freight train, yes. Freight is great!” I resisted the urge to sing.
“Is freight a real word or a you word, Mama?”
“A real word,” I said, distracted, enjoying the rush of the passing train. When my brain caught up, I laughed. “Yes, it’s a real word.”
“Not like catfish?”
“Not like catfish.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
Extroduction
Ok, this week really feels like it needs an extro. The story is a true one, but I promise it was also 100% inspired by the photo. You see, like many families, we have a lot of in jokes. Not even jokes, just phrases and words that only mean what they mean because of their history in our family. There’s a bridge in Yorkshire where you have to say “Merry Christmas” every time you drive over it, because once we were driving to my grandparents’ house and hit that bridge at midnight on 24/25 December; parking spaces where two are empty facing each other, so you can drive in and out forwards are “Grandad spaces” because they were his favourite kind, and you can’t say freight without saying (ideally singing) Freight is great from the song in Starlight Express.
You also can’t see a barn owl without the phrase “Not barn owls anyway” (from the beautiful Jill Tomlinson book “The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark”) popping into your head. And to me, Fleur’s picture wasn’t a tree with a fairy door in, it was a tree with a barn owl, halfway up the trunk, facing left. So this week’s inspiration went: photo –> barn owl –> not barn owls anyway –> weird family phrases –> conversation with Dominic on the way to piano.
Catfish, by the way, apart from being catfish, are also the family name for wind turbines: Whiskery blighters, marauding across the landscape.
I know what you’re thinking. My kids have no hope!
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