the joy of catching the train

Welcome to clipboard, a weekly newsletter about good shit in Tāmaki Makaurau, by Reilly Hodson. This week, I’m talking about why I love catching the train from my new place. If you enjoy clipboard, share it with your friends!

hitting the tracks

I like working in the office. I prefer it for the conversations with coworkers, the ability to learn quickly from people who know more than I do, the excuse to get dressed up, even though the office that I work in is an unpleasant set of cubicles with leaky windows (thanks, Sir Bob Jones!).

Since we moved house to Mt Albert, I also prefer working from the office because I get to take the train.

Auckland’s train system is flawed, and doesn’t cover as much of the city as it should, but for those of us who are lucky enough to live along a train line and work near a train station, it’s pretty much the most pleasant way to commute (apart from walking, or perhaps a bike ride - stay tuned). No traffic, no need to find a park, and the timetable is frequent enough that missing your usual time isn’t a biggie.

The best thing about the train, though, is the exposure to people outside of my, *ahem*, bubble. Stuck at home, interacting with the entirety of the world through various feeds, my understanding of what people are up to and thinking about during the day has been warped drastically over the past few years.

This will sound trite, but catching the train means interacting with actual people, and widening my view of people, a little bit. Tāmaki Makaurau is a city with 1.5 million people in it, and my experience of it is mostly shaped through the eyes of about 50 of them.

Riding on the train in the morning is a visceral reminder that, as much as I’d like to be, I’m not really the main character, and there are loads and loads of people out there experiencing their days completely differently to me. It’s an obvious thing, but acknowledging that other people exist in the same way as I do has been a valuable practice for me.

Sorry for getting a bit deep and dramatic this week. Now, links.

clips

• My partner and I watched all of Severance on Apple TV+ this week. A truly excellent show, would recommend! Worth paying for the service for a month to binge, in the same way that Ted Lasso was.

• Crane Brothers is opening a new store on Ponsonby Road this week, I can’t wait to go. I only own one piece from Crane, but if I could afford it that number would certainly be higher.

• I’m intrigued by these Lite Year socks that just arrived at Indigo and Provisions.

• I love reading Derek Guy of Die Workwear’s pieces about what he’s excited to wear each season, and this one about spring applies pretty well to the Southern Hemisphere autumn, too.

• Friend of clipboard Albert Yen, proprietor of Daily Daily, has curated a list of autumn recommends in Auckland - when Albert recommends something, I listen.

• Zayyar from Wynn and Thayne has been helping me trade in my watch, which has been giving me skin issues, and I would highly recommend his service. If you’re looking to invest in a watch, sell an existing piece or trade in, there’s no one better. I’m not at a Pepsi GMT level yet, but if you are, he has one!

• Big fan of how Prakashan Sritharan styles the new Thom Morison season in this interview. The oatmeal knit is quite something.

That’s all for clipboard this week, thanks for reading! Next weekend is also a long weekend, so next week’s issue will also fall on a Monday, before we resume normal programming the following Sunday. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram, and get in touch via email.