A Day Holiday!

I've just had a holiday!

A church friend took me all off two miles up the road, (Rayne Station is 2 miles and 14 chains from Braintree Station in case you wished to know) where we got coffee from the one time booking hall!   Closed many years ago it has been run for some time by volunteers (I think) with a successful coffee shop attached.  This now provided takeaway coffee and cake for aprice from behind a security window.  I wish I had known this before. The coach just peeping in the photo is used as a museum, when open, and the use of the building in this way is very successful on normal days.  

Naturally, I suggested this spot as I knew it would be quiet, with an occasional passerby, the old railway line now being a popular walking/cycling spot.  Today the car park was full, with others outside, so we squeezed in at the end and joined a long - distantly seperated - queue for coffee.  Very slow, only one man doing everything, and having avoided the slice of tempting cake we both regarded as fattening we could afford it.

 

 

How lovely to photograph something other than a Daffodil!  A pot of pansies at the end of the platform, next to the aged railway cart, supplied some colour to the scene.  Sitting nearby I allwed the young lass to disgorge her worries and offer news of the past year.  We have not met for a year, I wonder how many others are in similar situations?  The sun shone occasionally but the clouds kept hiding it again.  This however, did not deter the number of people walking/cycling/dogwalking from using the line.  The coffee queue never ended, it went on for ever and I suspect this is a constant at this spot these days, there is nowhere else nearby to wander abroad.

 

Had we more time we may have trundled up the path a short way, but neither of us would have gone far.  Age is not a blessing!  It must be 18 months or more since I have been here.  The place is looking a bit grubby, the grass worn by the people attending events before Lock Down, as well as the daily traffic.  This is rather sad, the popularity of the place enhanced by Lockdown leading to a despoiling of the area.  A well kept station building however, and a marvellous day out for me!