Birmingham New Street, Grand Central

As my older sister TMLHereandThere, aka Tanya, once said to me on an EasyJet flight,

'We have arrived in the future! The future is Now!'

She meant that the robot-controlled vision of the future, with space age technology and increased leisure time, the future we were schooled on in the 1960s-80s, appeared to have come to pass for a brief moment on that flight. The crew were young and male and had spiky blonde gelled hair and slightly space age orange overalls, which added to the effect.

Today's trip through Birmingham New Street station, after the  multi millionpound  revamp, made me ponder on the fact that stations have become, in part, places of beauty and light, just as some of the grand old stations such as London Paddington and Preston still are. They have also become temples of consumerism, in the manner of airports.

I like the new layout. But, as before, you do need to allow plenty of time to change platforms, and there are still a load of  barriers. It's not as grim and grey as it used to be (and neither is Reading station) but I still wouldn't fancy my chances there as a person with both disabilities AND luggage. A helper would come in very handy.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about Mid-Wales, where I have gone forward into the past, to a Forestry Commission cottage....