Surprise: WPhotoC…

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to be at Grand Canal Dock Station as the steam Santi train was being prepared for its first run of the day… to Maynooth and back. Serendipity favours the lazy, or the fortunate, or… oh well, my chance meeting with a fellow there ended in a rather surprising outcome.

OK… there we have it for this week’s challenge… serendipity throws in a lucky surprise. How so? Easy… the fellow in question just so happened to be a rather senior official from the RPSI. We chatted a bit, he asked about this and that and before I knew it we were talking about grandchildren and getting a ride on the Santi train.

It was quite an honour when Mr Joe McKeown, the gentleman in question, invited us along. If we could get ourselves to Maynooth Station the next day we may well have a ride back on the train to Dublin… provided we didn’t have 20 kids in tow. No… I assured… it would only be the good lady and the two lads, and if I may, I would love to join…

The confirmation was swift… all was in order. I whipped out the phone to called the good lady. Yes, it could be arranged. So, there you have it… we had the pleasure of getting the lads onto the Santi train.

We were the next day… two little boys wondering what the fuss was all about. We waited on the platform and soon the train arrived. Only pity, 461 had taken a chill and wasn’t on duty for the day. Never mind, the younger diesel-electric would do just fine! Mr McKeown was quick to point us to our seats… after the boys passed Santi by… they’re not fond of getting too close…

I’ll be lying if I say we didn’t have fun… I’d also be lying if I say the lads weren’t caught totally off guard… totally surprised! I even think the good lady was taken aback… rather not sure what to make of it all…

I’ll tell you one thing though… it wasn’t much of a surprise that we had fun… it also wasn’t much of a surprise that a few hours with two young lads was enough to send us matures into a state of exhausted delirium… I lie not!

We did have another surprise on the way home… a rainbow of fantastic magnitude… a reminder that surprises come in all sorts of ways… beauty… 😉