I was woken up at 5am in this London hotel, had Happy Birthday said to me and told I would need to keep my balance in the shower; 30 minutes later I was fully dressed, it was still mostly dark outside – but I could see the lights of cranes everywhere on the skyline, traffic noise was increasing, and it was 6.15am when we left the room. A very nice bloke (mid 20s ish) at the front desk checked us out of the hotel, and out on Euston Road 5 minutes later I saw a homeless man in a doorway sketching a view of the city, and at 6.27am we entered St. Pancras Station.

We went through electric boarding pass checking barriers and through the security barriers (which Mum set off for no apparent reason – as usual), and then – as she wanted breakfast, The Station Pantry was stopped at. A bloke behind the counter started yelling something, a woman was very keen to get breakfast was amongst customers, Mum got out a little pot of porridge for her breakfast, and while we were sat there, a really thin bloke of around 6ft 7” was strolling around, a man and a woman (both early 30s) were gazing at each other and holding hands over a table, and then started feeling each others faces, I could hear someone talking about waffles, a small girl in a pram was holding a Disney Princess magazine, and a bloke stopped and did something I forgot because it was pointed out to me that a limping man I noticed had huge feet. I remarked on the numbers of wireless headphones and how almost everyone had a smartphone out, by then I was wondering how long it took to build this place, Mum told me the tunnel was 1 of Margaret Thatcher’s better decisions, the appearances of other passengers and staff were discussed – and she pointed out a man who she thought was good looking; I was wondering about the percentage of passengers who were French and doing a morning commute and the number of British passengers fluent in French, a woman at another table was holding her phone up and seemed to be doing a video call, and the woman sat opposite her seemed to be eating a sandwich made from 2 croissants. By the time we started boarding the 8.16am train to Amsterdam I’d forgotten the final destination; we went up a rather steep travellator; once by the train, Mum wanted to take photos of both of us via my phone for our travel company, which was done, and when I took 1 of her boarding, a small Japanese looking boy did a bit of photobombing (which made me smile).

It was 8.17am when the train moved, I couldn’t get on the Wi-Fi, she went off along the train to search for breakfast, everyone I could see in the carriage had their phones out, that 334.7km/h was the trains record speed and we were currently going at 223km/h was displayed on a little screen above the seats, and she returned with coffee that she thought would be disgusting and shut her eyes while mentioning the delay the horrendous customer in front of her had caused, and then she got out a falafel and crudités baguette bought earlier. I noticed – in the reflection of the entirely black outside of the window (as by then we seemed to be in the tunnel) the woman sat in front of me stabbing herself with a NovoRapid insulin pen (which is what I use for my type 1 diabetes), there were a couple of passengers accompanied by soft toys visible, and what appeared to be another train whizzing past made me wonder how many trains could be in the tunnel at once. We entered France at 9.13am, and I had a look at the Eurostar website due to wondering about speeds, and discovered it travels at 100mph through the tunnel, and the website also mentioned ‘5 crazy ways to cross the Channel’ – which were swimming (first managed in 1847), a man doing it in a wing suit in 2003, the comedian Tim Fitz Higham rowing across in a bathtub (in 9 hours and 6 minutes) – on 17th May 2007, by water skiing (done in 100 minutes – on 12th March 2010), by being strapped to 54 industrial strength helium balloons and ‘drifting around’ for 4 hours (and then narrowly avoiding a power line and landing in a cabbage field) and by hovercraft in 2019 – which took 22 minutes (travelling at up to 110mph – between 15->20 metres above the water). I stared at my phone for a while, Mum was doing sudokus, a toddler further down the carriage was being told she was in France, there was very little but wheat either side of the track, we were going at 227km/h when I decided to do my Duolingo – and did it (because I didn’t want to lose the 1213 day streak I’ve built up on the app), a lot of stuff was said in French, Dutch, and English over the intercom; then Brussels was reached at 11.12am.

The woman in front of me was watching videos on the Lidl website of strange substances being cooked (with instructions in what looked like Arabic), a collapsed what looked like a multi-coloured rabbit soft toy was visible on a table several seats down, Mum was ripping up the baguette when the station was left at 11.27am, I stabbed myself with my insulin pen; and the bridges outside had graffiti all over them, a warehouse that said NIPPON EXPRESS on it wasn’t far from the track, Mum’s tablet suddenly decided to connect to the trains Wi-Fi and she got multiple alerts/pinging noises coming through her ears (via her hearing aids); and then a grinning staff member came along looking at boarding passes and speaking at least 4 different languages; and it took the Wi-Fi around 5 minutes to start playing todays Farming Today program into her ears – by which point we’d just passed Antwerpen-Berchen, followed by Antwerpen Central at 11.57am (which my phone was telling me was the current location) – alongside a packed road that seemed to be the Antwerp Ring. My bum was going a bit numb and the train was going at about 230km/h, some sun was out, I noticed an advert for wine being sold in the Cafe Metropole on board shown on the screen above the seats (and by then Mum was flicking through global headlines on the BBC website); there was a random extremely loud bleeping noise; and an article (including a short video) on the BBC app about Boris Johnson refusing to rule out a comeback and claiming people are more interested in broadband than in the fate of politicians was pointed out to me. She – while trying to download the ByWay itinerary – was wondering what the difference between uploading and downloading is; I could see the woman in front of me browsing a website of headscarves, a bloke across the aisle who only seemed to have hair (and it was quite long) on 1 side of his head, Mum’s emails suddenly all loaded, I noticed a Krispy Kreme doughnut email amongst them, and then we arrived in Rotterdam….