A demolition grabber is in repose, resting its rusty steel forehead on the ground, neck curled after a giant's meal of twisted metal girders and dusty concrete. It sleeps.

At Duddeston, the plants are waking after the winter, roiling over the platforms and tracks in great, green clouds. On the abandoned platform, an open book lies on its spine, pages riffling gently in the warm breeze.

The embankments are decorated with an indigo froth of bluebells, seeming to float slightly above the grass in the late afternoon light.

When I get off the train, the air is glittering with insects. Midges, lacewings and thunder flies make the air soupy and thick. If I were a filter feeder, I could strain the air, like a terrestrial whale eating plankton. My skin is constantly tickled by the legs and wings of lacewings, and warmed by the sun.