Why didn’t you fly, my boyfriend replied (with a crying face emoji). It was a Thursday evening in late February, and I’d messaged to say I was already feeling sleepy despite having another train journey – of three hours – to embark on once I arrived by Eurostar in Paris.

He asked me this before, when we came home from a trip to the Scottish Highlands last year; he flew, I paid twice the price for a journey three times as long. 

We’re booked to go to the US this summer, so I do still fly. The choice to go by train rather than plane for destinations within Europe feels less like climate action than self-flagellation. The carbon I’ve saved is inconsequential. Neither can I say I am setting an example and encouraging others to do the same, as my boyfriend evidences (although feel free to write to me in future to say that this blog post convinced you). 

Before my current trip, to Bordeaux, nervousness kept scuttering through my thoughts. Thursday would be a National Express coach from Cheltenham in the morning, Eurostar in the afternoon, a Metro journey from Gare du Nord to Paris Montparnasse, then a TGV to Bordeaux arriving at eleven pm – assuming no delays. What if I missed the connection to Bordeaux and had to pay even more money for a train arriving after midnight, or I couldn’t get there at all? I had an important appointment on Friday morning. 

Fortunately, since very little of the journey hinged on the British railway system, no delays occurred. My greatest sadness was that my allocated seat on the TGV was on the lower, not upper, floor.

On Friday, another (shorter) train took me to a commune outside Bordeaux. The way the timings worked, I was too early to turn up at the gates of my destination. A cursory consultation with Google Maps indicated a possible footpath going along the river, the long way around to where I wanted to end up. I headed there, passing an open gate on which a sign hung: ROUTE BARRE. 

Abruptly I found myself in a little Narnia. Blue tits and even chiff chaffs were calling, sunlight was reaching through the trees, and big clumps of lesser celandine announced themselves with bright-yellow flowers. I even passed fresh rootings from wild boar, mes vieux amis. Perhaps they were tucked away in the nearby heaps of brambles and last year’s bracken, listening to my steps.

I arrived for my appointment on time, and the few hours I spent there were more than worth the time it had taken to come (and would take to get home). Where was I, what did I see, exactly? You’ll have to wait till early 2027 to know, when my book on megafauna comes out. 

Back to Bordeaux. On to the city of Tours, to stay with my Bonne-Maman for a day. Then more hours on the train to Paris Austerlitz on Sunday morning. So accustomed to the unreliability of British trains, I had booked myself an over-generous buffer before my Eurostar to London. Instead of the Metro I walked Parisian streets I would never have otherwise seen. Crossing one of the many bridges, Notre-Dame stood in the distance, still swathed in grey cobwebs of scaffold as if the haunt of a giant metal-making spider. A Sunday market was happening along one road, forcing me to slow to a crawl and take in antiques, jewellery, and tattered old books.

Even with the seventy-one-minute walk between Paris Austerlitz and Gare du Nord, I would arrive too early. So I stopped at a café and ordered tea. I appreciated the fact that in France, no milk is given unless you ask for it. Black tea is best. I sat outside, watched Parisians and other tourists go by, and I bathed in spring air and sunlight. 

Our writer-in-residence Chantal Lyons, author of Wainwright Prize shortlisted “Groundbreakers”, is offering free mentoring sessions to a prose-writer over a 6 month period. You can focus on short pieces, essays or a long form book, but the subject matter must relate to nature and the outdoors.  Mentoring will take place by email and/or through Zoom calls. We particularly encourage people on lower incomes to apply.

The successful applicant will also be invited to write blog posts for the walk · listen · create, one at the onset of the mentoring period, and another blog post around the end (this could be related to something you are already working on or something entirely new). To apply, please complete this short application form.