Stop the World
At some point over the next few weeks I'm almost certainly going to meet myself travelling in the opposite direction somewhere. Before you start, I know it would contravene the conservation of mass rule, but then Marty McFly did it in Back to the Future, so I'm guessing the physicists must all be wrong.
The first few days this week were spent in Leeds once moreworking on a client site, pretending to be clever, and slowly turning into that George Clooney character in “Up in the Air”. I stayed at The Holiday Inn this timeand found myself humming the Elton John track while walking through the back streets towards it on Sunday evening. This kind of thing isn't unusual for meI walked the hallways of the Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum the other weekend quietly whistling the soundtrack to Stargatemy brain must secretly run on music.
While making my way towards the office alongside the canal in the centre of the city, I started noticing reminders of the pastlike engraved pavement stones. My grandfather worked as a captain on the tankers that once populated these canalsI wondered what it might have been like in previous generations.
Very little remains of the landscape my grandfather would have knownthe factories, cranes, and warehouses have all gonereplaced by modern living accommodation. I couldn't help thinking the apartment blocks had a “LEGO” quality to themall the same, stacked on top of, and alongside each other. Each balcony seemed to be populated with the same thingsthe same model of table, the same plant, and the same chairs. Perhaps the people all dress the same too ?Thankfully the journey home was uneventfulor rather, the second attempt at it was. After making remarkably swift progress towards the station on my final evening, I was accosted by a beautiful foreign exchange student looking for the bus station. I had no idea where it was, but spent a few moments helping herlooking it up on my phone, and walking together. While helping her, a quiet voice on my shoulder was whispering “you're going to miss your train”.
I didn't miss the train.
Through some kind of minor miracle I made it onboard an earlier train than originally planned. I had no seat, and found myself standing in the access way between carriagesfiguring out if I could sit on my coat on the floor without getting in anybody's way. I was about to do just that when fate intervened.“We apologise that this train will be delayed leaving the station this eveningwe have no driver at presenthe is still en-route from London following disruption earlier this afternoon”.
I waited for perhaps ten minutes before dragging my bags back off the luggage racks, and resigning myself to the later train (with the crafty plan of arriving at the platform early enough to bag a seat). While gathering my things, a girl noticed me and asked;“Can we get back off this train?is that allowed?”“Yesthat's exactly what I'm doing”And so it was that I walked the length of the platform with a pretty lady in tow, laughing, joking, and getting to know each other as much as you might in two minutes. It turned out we were both planning exactly the same thingto get the next train, and bag a seat. We parted company at the foot of the escalators, and waved smiled goodbyes.
Fifteen minutes laterafter climbing aboard the next London bound train, and feeling particularly smug about having procured a seat for myself, I was just fishing the kindle from my bag when a familiar voice interrupted.“I know I'm on the right train now, because you're on it!“There she was again. I will admit to feeling a little downhearted that she carried on pasthaving done the journey so often recently I wasn't exactly looking forward to another 2 hours watching the scenery roll past. Sure, I had movies to watch, and a book to read, but somebody to talk to is always going to win (actually, that can go either way, can't itperhaps “somebody pleasant to talk to” might be a better suggestion).
In the event I became completely an utterly engrossed in “1927”the book by Bill Bryson that I have been picking away at over the last few weeks. Who knew that the US Government killed 60,000 of their own citizens in the 1920s and 30s in the name of Eugenics ? Who also knew that the IQ test was originally invented to find out how stupid people werenot how clever they wereAfter traversing London I called home (realising it was the children's bedtime), and informed our youngestwho picked up the phonethat I would arrive at perhaps 9pm, and then have a 10 minute walk home. She translated this to “Dad will be home in 10 minutes”, and got to stay up to wait for me. Half an hour later W texted me.“Where are you?”“Just arriving at Maidenhead. Why?“I never received a response and the children were in bed when I arrived home.