Your Olympic correspondent

Warrington Bank Quay

Wigan

Your correspondent's notebook and Kindle

Preston station

Your Olympic correspondent here, well I am well on my way to the Olympics. What is there literary about the Olympics? Well the Greeks had a word - the original word -  for it and a type of poem called the Pindaric ode. We will not dwell on that for the time being. The atmosphere was very festive on the train from Lockerbie to Carlisle. A fellow passenger was on her way to London not for the Olympics but for the Proms. Another group from Moffat were heading to York to celebrate a birthday at York Races Ladies Day. There were men in pink top hats made of cardboard, and a woman wearing a white shiny riband across her t-shirt that read 'Mother of the Bride'. Now that I am on a packed train on my way to Euston, so far all I have seen in the way of dressing up is a youth wearing a false beard. The sun is shining and the only tiny worry I have is how to get from Euston to my lodgings in southwest London with a wheelie case containing survival kit for two weeks, my handbag, my backpack containing my laptop and the remains of my picnic (bacon buttie, tomato, cheese slice and an apple). I usually get the tube but changing from one line to another involves lots of stairs. I have walked it (from Euston to southwest London) once, but that was without a wheelie case.