Wednesday, 9:15pm, crying as I walk back to my flat from the Edinburgh train station. I was supposed to be on my way to Manchester, but I misunderstood the sign and got on the wrong train. I was only about 10 miles outside of Edinburgh when I realized it, but it was far enough that by the time I could get off the train and get on another one heading back to Edinburgh, I had missed the train I needed. In all of my traveling misadventures, this is the only one that was my fault. In the end, it pushed back my arrival to Manchester by all of about 11 hours and cost me about 55 pounds, but dang was I mad at myself.
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Thursday, 10:15pm, crying again. This time I’m listening to this song, being performed live in the Manchester symphony hall, standing hand in hand with Paul. I remember the first time I heard this song. I remember the first time I met Paul and how he told me how much he loved it. I remember him whistling it in my bathroom in North Park. I remember waking up in my apartment in North Park to find a text message that said there was a ticket for me to this show, if only I could find myself in Manchester on the right day. And I all of those memories and the condition of my present seemed a bit surreal and awesome and worthy of a few tears.
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Saturday, 5:00pm, Paul and I are relaxing in lawn chairs in the sun on a grassy knoll somewhere in Manchester city center. The idea was to watch some of the first test cricket match of the Ashes series on a big screen with a bunch of other England fans, but as glorious as it was in Manchester that day, Cardiff was rainy.
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Sunday 1:30am, I am sitting at a wooden kitchen table in a 200 year old stone house, eating crisps and drinking tea to ward off the hangover that is inevitable from the many pints consumed while spending time with Paul’s brother Ian and his wife Lynn. We drank in a pub called the Spread Eagle, we crashed a 30 year high school reunion, and did our part to support the economy, drinking local ales in several other places.
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Sunday, 3:30pm, standing in Paul’s mum’s back yard, watching Paul figure out how to put up a tent. I assured him that they’re all the same and very straightforward, but never having actually put up any tent before (ever!), he wanted a test run. I really wanted to stand with my tea and watch him struggle, but I just didn’t have the heart.
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Tuesday, 7:30pm, on the TransPennine Express train from Manchester to Edinburgh, I commented to Paul how lovely it was, traveling together *with* him, instead of just *to* him. We enjoyed some snacks and beers and shared a soundtrack and watched the beautiful green hills roll by. “That’s the idea, darling,” he reminded me.
