PAGES FROM LOST NOTEBOOKS: Impressions from a Speeding Train #2

Monday 22 December 2008

It was my last day in France.

I must catch a taxi to the Macon Ville TGV station a few kilometres out of town. The train leaves at 10:30 am and arrives at the Gare de Lyon in Paris at about 2:00 pm.

I have a window seat and watch the towns and farms flash past as this super fast train makes its way to the French capitol. Stations come and go so fast that there is no chance to read the names on the platforms. Hills in the distance seem to be relatively stationary. Everything in between is moving past at various speeds.

I take a few photographs. The speed of the train blurs many images. But they are not rejected. Once again I am reminded of the French Impressionist artists of the late 19th century who recognised that we do not see complete scenes in sharp focus at any time.

And so here are my impressions of the journey from Macon to Paris.

Click on the images to enlarge them and see the detail.

Finally I arrive at the Gare de Lyon and again the paintings of Claude Monet come to mind. I climb up to the entrance of the Blue Train restaurant and look back at the cavernous station. Yes, Monet was right.

Long Stories

Long Stories and Novels

Most of the longer stories were based upon real experiences. Yet they have a certain poetic licence applied to them.

Dear Rebecca is an account of a journey made to Europe during the northern winter of 1998-1999. It is accurate in that it describes the places and events, and that there are many Rebeccas, but the letters were never sent.

Dear Rebecca by Douglas Wilkie |

The Memory of Dreams is an account of another journey made to Europe in the European Winter of 2000-2001. The places described were visited, most of the people described were met, but did not necessarily all of the things described happened in quite the way the story tells it.

Family Histories

Family Histories

The Cossticks is the story of the Cosstick family from origins in Sussex, England during the 1600s through to the emmigration of one family to the Victorian goldfields during the 1850s and the subsequent growth of that family in Victoria.

The Hamiltons is the story of a branch of the ancestors connected to the Cossticks. It traces the Hamiltons from their origins in Kent, England during the 1700s; the illustrious life of Sir John Hamilton at Dover, Kent; and the emmigration of one branch of the family to South Australia in 1837 where the Hamilton's Ewell Winery was established by one branch of the family while the other journeyed to the goldfields of Victoria and met the Cosstick family.

The Wilkies is the story of the Wilkie family from Scotland during the 1700s; through the generations who worked in Glasgow of the Industrial Revolution; through the involvement of the family in the Great War of 1914-1918; to the emmigration of one of the branches of the family to Australia.