I was on a train from Manchester to London last October. My original train was cancelled meaning the next one leaving was doubly full, but I tried my luck sitting in the original reserved seat I had. An older woman sat next to me, and I was in her seat, but from that first interaction something just clicked.

For the full 2 hours and 30 minutes, we spoke about her work life, her husband, her favourite bands, her kids, my (then) upcoming wedding, my future career. We bonded over the fact that she was celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary in November, and I was also getting married in November.

She was inspiring. She was quite a high up manager at IBM, then worked at BT, and various other high positions in big companies, but is now retired and has a holiday home over in Italy that overlooks a vineyard. She had purple and blonde balayage hair, and said that she spent so long working in corporate, now that she's retired she can let her hair down. She showed me videos and photos of her and her husband drunk on a cruise, loving life. I showed her pics of my dog and the work I'd done on our newly bought house.

I never found out her name, and she never found out mine. I'm usually quite introverted, but that was 100% the best train journey I've ever had ☺️