Marking time at Paddington

If you have to spend a few hours waiting for a train anywhere, Paddington station has to be one of the best places to do it.

I had a few hours to kill till before my train to Oxford this morning and my luggage was too heavy to drag about so I sat on a bench seat and watched the world go by. 

The Glastonbury music festival starts on the weekend and hundreds of bright young things were heading off early to find themselves the perfect spot to pitch their tent.  Based on the people I saw this morning, there is a definite uniform for festival attendance. Skinny jeans or linen shorts, backpack front and back with pillow, tent and rolled mat juggled precariously on top.  Knee high socks and gumboots. Artfully rolled scarf, blue tinted glasses and floppy black velvet hats are optional extras. 

The station has a unique way of managing London's ever present pigeon problem. I was idly watching a bird walk along the floor at my feet when a young man in an orange high visibility vest strode up with a falcon resting on his arm. The pigeon took off pretty quickly so I guess that the falcon is their clever way for keeping the bird problem down.

The guy came back later and I asked how effective the falcon is on the bird problem. He said it worked better when he could release the bird (the mind boggles) but even the sight of it sent the pigeons away. He said that he spent four hours a day at Paddington three days a week but that he also visited other stations around London. I wonder how he describes his job on his passport - Pigeon scarer?  Falcon carrier?  Some people do amazing jobs.