It’s mid-October, so it must be……………nearly Christmas at the
garden centre. But what’s this? No Flying Scotsman in the Christmas fairground
display cabinet.
Smartly side-stepping Halloween and Bonfire Night, the
garden centre is making straight for the festive season, but the centrepiece
of the dazzling display of flashing lights and merry-go-rounds behind the
plastic Christmas trees in Tinsel Town appears to have gone AWOL.
Well, the tender’s there, in LNER Apple Green livery and
four teak coaches are in evidence, but FS herself is nowhere to be seen. This
demands an explanation from the controller [whose body fat index is probably
within the normal range].
Was this a case of shop-lifting early for Christmas? No. She
was back in the works. Not again, surely? He was remaining tight-lipped about the
exact nature of her ailments. Must be quite an embarrassment after all that
cash had been spent on her.
He was able to divulge that she had done ten hour shifts
every day for ten weeks on the Christmas specials roster for each of the last
two years, but after her most recent lay-off in the sheds she had simply failed
to steam.
“Time for a change, maybe,” he mused. “You’ve got to get the
coaches and everything just right, though,” he added, “otherwise the aficionados
will be moaning that we’ve got the wrong match of engine and train.”
Too, right, mate. I will be back to check.
No comments:
Post a Comment