... Coddiwomple; USA colloquial: verb: to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.

A couple of weeks ago I had gone walkabout, photographically speaking, with one of my Nikon F80's, and a 24mm and 50mm in tow plus a couple of rolls of Portra 800, with the firm intention of photographing something but not sure what nor where. I set off simply in a vague direction to see what I might see.

After a lot of wandering about in various places and finding nothing that caught my eye worth snapping. When using film where the cost of pressing the shutter release is over £2 for each frame for a fully developed picture (including the film, its development, scanning and all the ancillary p&p costs) tends to focus the mind and discourage you from blasting away at just any old thing. Thus I was about to head off home without any photos and with a despondent feeling.

It was then I tripped over the Watercress Line running a one steam train day service and by sheer luck the locomotive rostered to run that day was the newly refurbished and only recently back in action CanPac or more formally put Merchant Navy Class No.35005 Canadian Pacific. Lovely jubbly; I grabbed a few frames in my inimitable snapshot style. I had, by happy chance found my destination.

It was only later quite by chance I came across a folksy expression being used by an American friend who said I had been "Coddiwompling". Say what? Yes indeed that was a new one on me. I worried about what wompling cod might have involved and why he might have thought I may have been involved in such an outlandish pursuit, but it turned out simply to be that I had been travelling in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination. Who knew?

Mind you I did eventually arrive at a satisfying destination and took a few frames that fulfilled my urge to make some photos that day and above all I got to see the superb newly restored CanPac in action which was the highlight of the whole thing, oh and a superb example of a Royal Enfield motor cycle too 😀. Coddiwompling indeed 🤣!