The trans-pennine express left Leeds on time, despite the ice and fog
and utter and complete disruption in the whole of the country. Just the foreboding of snow, you understand. BIG FREEZE ON THE WAY! announced news placards outside the station.

They drank coffee and stared intently at their i-phones. At first, for what seemed an eternity, reception was not good, lost in the tunnels through the granite hillsides outside the city. The train soon passed Dewsbury, where most people departed, and then Huddersfield, which had a station façade once called the most splendid in all of England.

Outside, the sky a gun-metal grey, the sleet spitting down, dirty cream coloured stone houses along the valleys emerging from the mist then disappearing again, and tall windows of the old mill factories still lit with electric light, though who knows what they contain these days.

I can access the wi-fi now, she said finally. She let out a long sigh of relief.

Mine’s still struggling, he said.

Cape Town, 21 degrees, Adelaide, 18 degrees. Singapore, 28 degrees. She reeled them off. Each destination, a shake of his head, eyes down, fixed on his screen. Moscow, minus 21. I don’t think we’ll be going there.

He asked, How about Hong Kong?

I haven’t got Hong Kong, love. Only Singapore. It’s coming up random. Brunei’s 29 degrees. Borneo’s near enough isn’t it? And Bangkok’s 33 degrees. Shanghai, only 7 degrees there. Rio De Janiero, 30 degrees.

Wrong side of the world, he said. He shook his phone, as if that would
cure it.

Singapore would be nice, don’t you think? It’s supposed to be very clean. And it’s an island, like Hong Kong.

Ah, he said. At bloody last! Now I’ve got Singapore. Friday 28 degrees, Saturday 27, Sunday 28. Scattered thunderstorms.

They were not young and perhaps had generous pensions. They both wore the same brand of pristine white trainers with a gold logo. They explored meteorologic conditions around the world together, as the train slowed on its approach to Manchester Piccadilly, steady at 2 degrees, passing avenues of red and orange shipping containers, stacked high, and no doubt bound for similar destinations, weather conditions permitting.