Poem for Saturday and Union Station Model Trains

From a Railway Carriage
By Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river;
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

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I had plans to be out on Friday, but shortly after I dropped Maddy off at the mall and went to meet friends for an Absol raid in the woods near the tennis center, it started to sleet and then to snow. We had almost no accumulation -- just enough to make the sidewalks very slippery, and, later, the roads -- but it was dark and overcast and hard to keep the windshield clean, so I stayed in and beaded bracelets.

We had dinner with my parents, exchanged Chanukah presents, and ate the birthday cake Alice made for me and delivered on Thursday when she came to see Maddy. Then we came home and watched Agents of SHIELD (time travel good, gladiator stuff boring) and the first two episodes of Knightfall (historically dubious but entertaining). From the holiday train display at Union Station, a Norwegian fishing village: