Sunday. A good night's sleep, another nine hours or so, maybe more. Tired, though. The rain? The snow? The forty below? Ah, well. My sister had a group portrait to shoot for a friend about the time I boarded the train, so my nephew and brother-in-law ran me to the station. Plenty of time to get on board, settle in, get my head together for the coming ride.

I have to admit I felt much better, the sinus-head thing improving, the tired feeling receding, as the afternoon progressed. This seems to the be routine. You hear mornings aren't all that great for oldsters, maybe if I were to skip the mornings and use the head clearer later afternoons and late evenings to better advantage? Right. I knew that. Bad mornings become bad afternoons. Maybe no way around it.

Their train announcements seem more authoritarian and “thou shalt not” than they have in the past. Nothing wrong with warning us to keep the kids in check, not to use the tables in the parlour car and such, but they seem to have more of an edge to them, as if they were disciplining or warning small children. Why am I even sensitive to such? Cranky, I'd guess, although again the head feels good.

Anyway, I'd signed up for a five o'clock dinner appointment, the first time dinner is served, and showed up at five. It's difficult for me to show up for almost anything late, an affliction of sorts, I've described it in the past, but I was the first to arrive and they asked me what I was doing there as they hadn't announced dinner yet. OK. I sat in the parlour car for a while (not at a table) and waited for about ten minutes before saying the hell with it and returning to my compartment.

Now there was no reason for me to do that. It happens I wasn't hungry, although I've eaten very little today. Why skip dinner of something so trivial? Then again, if I were hungry I'd have waited nicely for my turn. No cranky thoughts, smile at the people as you pass, they all seem nice, everyone's having a nice trip, Christmas has been survived, after all, and everyone is still alive.

Later. A picture or two as we headed out, not sure there was much there, but it's a view you only get from the train. Start by crossing the river at Portland, then on into the dark. Not much to see in the dark, awakening briefly as we pulled into a stop, vaguely noticing there were lights out there before nodding off. Not many stops, not many lights heading south into the night.