The snow has melted and refroze, it is now treacherous underfoot. I get the train from Stockport having missed the Romiley train. It is a cross-country train, it travels slowly down the tracks, clunking rapidly. No ticket inspector passes by so I don't buy a ticket and no one is checking at the end of the platform, it is a free trip.
I should have worn my thicker coat, it is cold in town. I bury my hands deep in my pockets and hurry to the Soup Kitchen. I have never been there before but I find it. It is a small place, there must be about 20 people there. Black Jack Barnet is playing a six-string banjo when I enter. He has a beard and is wearing a light grey waistcoat. He makes a nice sound. I get a pint of Amstel from the bar and sit down on an simple bench made from varnished plywood. He plays a song about a prostitute, a pirate song and covers 'Walking in the air' from The Snowman cartoon and then a friend comes up on stage and they play Little Drummer Boy.
The gap between performances is awkward, everyone seems to know everyone else. I fiddle with my phone and eventually the second act gets on stage, Becca Williams. She has a nice voice and plays a good song called Belly Achin', the rest of her songs are also good. I get another drink in the interval and the girl next to me starts to make conversation. We talk about the X-factor and other gigs, it was nice.
Josephine wanders forward from the bar and starts to tune her guitar and warm up her voice. She is wearing a dress with a pattern like some brilliant old-fashioned wallpaper, brown and white diamonds. A man called Matt accompanies Josephine, mostly on an acoustic guitar but for a couple of songs on an hollow-bodied Dot type guitar, together they make a wonderful sound. For a couple of songs Matt applies something to the bridge of his acoustic which changes the sounds into something that suggests steel drums, it is intriguing and I will look it up later. They finish their set and then I leave.
I hustle to the station and when I get there the last Romiley train is leaving in 10 minutes, I queue up at Burger King and get some onion rings, I eat them on the train. I do not have a pocket big enough in the jacket I am wearing to carry a book so I am reduced to staring out of the window and trying to pick out shapes in the snow covered fields whilst battling the reflected lights on the glass. The reflection also shows the couple that sat down on the other side of the carriage, they seem happy together and laugh and joke and she falls asleep on his shoulder for a few minutes. The train pulls in at my station and I disembark. The pavements are a death-trap so I walk up through the estate, placing myself in the middle of the road apart from short trips to the curb to let cards past. It is cold so I remove my hands from my pockets and swing my arms back and forth in an exaggerated way to try and get some blood pumping. I get home and the dying moments of The Apprentice are on the TV, the woman won it.
