Day 1 (the real one) – Is it me, or is it him, or is it both of us? . . .

Perched in isolation on top of this thing we call a head, our brain has a lot to answer for. It’s capable of carrying out some of the most incredible tasks in the known cosmos. However, it does have an Achilles heel and it’s also host to this thing we call a mind.

It’s Wednesday evening and we’re currently pitched up in lovely Rochefort, Belgium. It’s been a very long day. Over two hundred miles must be close to Beastie’s record. It’s pretty much chucked it down from the moment we awoke. In one sense a good day to travel. We arrived totally cream crackered.

Earlier this morning, as our crossing was coming to a halt, I put my mind to work. “Pay attention!” I told it. “Make sure what happened last time doesn’t happen again.”

And what happened last time? During the crossing Mrs S stood at the back of Beastie reading a book. I was sprawled sideways across the driver and passenger seats, feet up, playing chess on my phone. Unnoticed by either of us the train came to a stop. Our carriage emptied. We were totally oblivious. Mrs S edging towards the end of a captivating chapter. Me, edging towards an infrequent victory. I have no notion of how long we remained concentrated, heads down. For some strange reason I glanced up, not wanting to lose my current positional advantage, I needed to take a breather and re-assess. Just as well I did.

If you’ve ever been on a tunnel crossing, then you’ll know just how long these carriages are. They are huge. Each one holds a long queue of vehicles, or are supposed to. Ours now didn’t – well, at least not in front of us.

At this point my mind had lost all sense of time. All sense of where it was. All sense of its responsibilities. It had forgotten who it was, so intent was it on the game. Nothing else was of consequence.

As I gazed into the distance it seemed like I was looking down the wrong end of a telescope. Two tiny uniformed figures were peering down from the other end. Scratching their heads no doubt. A discombobulated surge of energy charged into my brain – (re-arrange the letters and you get me) as it tried to make sense of the visual confusion confronting it. Sudden realisation turned to panic. “Cheese!” I yelled, “we’ve got to get rolling” . . .