Friday, November 27, 2009
"...and he sometimes speaks of you, the way that you want him to"
16.45 On Time
OldFishWife is thinking about VR, ThesaurusBoy drives, Lovely goes running at lunchtime and it looks like Leanne's going to get to Arizona before me.
I can't keep up these days.
Two Seconds - Laura Cantrell
OldFishWife is thinking about VR, ThesaurusBoy drives, Lovely goes running at lunchtime and it looks like Leanne's going to get to Arizona before me.
I can't keep up these days.
Two Seconds - Laura Cantrell
Labels: work
7.38 Five Minutes Late
I'm struck by the trees.
It's not that I've never seen the trees before but I can't remember being so impressed as I am this morning by the way their skeletons range across the skyline. Far more imposing, leafless, than they've looked during any other season of the year.
Maybe it's a specific confluence of light and mood and weather? Maybe I've never paid enough attention to them before.
*LOW BATTERY*
I'm struck by the trees.
It's not that I've never seen the trees before but I can't remember being so impressed as I am this morning by the way their skeletons range across the skyline. Far more imposing, leafless, than they've looked during any other season of the year.
Maybe it's a specific confluence of light and mood and weather? Maybe I've never paid enough attention to them before.
*LOW BATTERY*
Labels: train
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
16:53 Thirty Minutes Late
I wonder if that fine rain drifting across the floodlights at the Giant Axe is the closest I'm ever going to get to seeing the Northern Lights?
Rain - Patty Griffin
Crying In The Rain - The Everley Brothers
Rhythm Of The Rain - The Cascades
Fire & Rain - James Taylor
I wonder if that fine rain drifting across the floodlights at the Giant Axe is the closest I'm ever going to get to seeing the Northern Lights?
Rain - Patty Griffin
Crying In The Rain - The Everley Brothers
Rhythm Of The Rain - The Cascades
Fire & Rain - James Taylor
Labels: real life
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Charmed Life
17.41 On Time
A small miracle happens: I have a table seat on the only train in the North West of England currently running to schedule. Opposite are a Dad and his five year old Daughter, who have jumped on board at the last minute.
The Dad goes to stow the luggage on the rack, The Daughter empties out her Polly Pockets and lines up a collection of GoGos on the table. The man next to me really wants to open up his laptop and get on with Something Quite Important, but between us we've managed to engage the little girl in conversation. She tells us she has forty five GoGos and seventy one Polly Pockets but most of them are at home.
We've started moving before the train manager begins his announcement. He tells us that the train is due to arrive in Glasgow on time.
The Daughter informs us that "If you were going to count to ... erm ... two hundred and fifty it would take you ...er... about a thousand years". The patient man in the seat next to me chooses not opening his laptop over snubbing a five year old.
The train manager has not quite finished:
He repeats that tonight there will be additional stops at Penrith and Lockerbie, then delivers the sucker punch - there is no guarantee that the train will get to Penrith or Lockerbie. There is severe flooding (someone whispers that there's a freight train blocking the line, someone else heard that trees were down) he will do the best he can and the M6 is also closed (he says this almost defensively, as though anticipating the "I might as well have driven" remarks he'll face as he walks down the train).
The absence of an outbreak of consternation impresses me.
The Daughter divulges that the Dad is an actor, and she hopes he's going to be the Scarecrow, because he'll have to have straw up his jumper and in his hair. The indulgent man in the seat next to me smiles and abandons his attempt to get a Bit More Work done.
I feel a fraud as I wish them good luck and, standing to leave, confess that I'm only going one stop.
A small miracle happens: I have a table seat on the only train in the North West of England currently running to schedule. Opposite are a Dad and his five year old Daughter, who have jumped on board at the last minute.
The Dad goes to stow the luggage on the rack, The Daughter empties out her Polly Pockets and lines up a collection of GoGos on the table. The man next to me really wants to open up his laptop and get on with Something Quite Important, but between us we've managed to engage the little girl in conversation. She tells us she has forty five GoGos and seventy one Polly Pockets but most of them are at home.
We've started moving before the train manager begins his announcement. He tells us that the train is due to arrive in Glasgow on time.
The Daughter informs us that "If you were going to count to ... erm ... two hundred and fifty it would take you ...er... about a thousand years". The patient man in the seat next to me chooses not opening his laptop over snubbing a five year old.
The train manager has not quite finished:
He repeats that tonight there will be additional stops at Penrith and Lockerbie, then delivers the sucker punch - there is no guarantee that the train will get to Penrith or Lockerbie. There is severe flooding (someone whispers that there's a freight train blocking the line, someone else heard that trees were down) he will do the best he can and the M6 is also closed (he says this almost defensively, as though anticipating the "I might as well have driven" remarks he'll face as he walks down the train).
The absence of an outbreak of consternation impresses me.
The Daughter divulges that the Dad is an actor, and she hopes he's going to be the Scarecrow, because he'll have to have straw up his jumper and in his hair. The indulgent man in the seat next to me smiles and abandons his attempt to get a Bit More Work done.
I feel a fraud as I wish them good luck and, standing to leave, confess that I'm only going one stop.
Labels: train
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Every Breath You Take
17.41 On Time
Have become obsessed with the idea that ShiftyColleague is fiddling his leave. It's not like there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for how he keeps using it all up but still managing to have more days off, or how come he was in the minus yesterday but is in the plus again today.
Am determined to thwart him. Might mean going through his bins, figuratively speaking. Might not be in accordance with RIPA.
Don't tell anyone.
I - Spy - Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
Watching The Detectives - Elvis Costello
Karma Police - John Vanderslice
Creep - Radiohead
Cracking Up - Nick Lowe
Have become obsessed with the idea that ShiftyColleague is fiddling his leave. It's not like there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for how he keeps using it all up but still managing to have more days off, or how come he was in the minus yesterday but is in the plus again today.
Am determined to thwart him. Might mean going through his bins, figuratively speaking. Might not be in accordance with RIPA.
Don't tell anyone.
I - Spy - Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
Watching The Detectives - Elvis Costello
Karma Police - John Vanderslice
Creep - Radiohead
Cracking Up - Nick Lowe
Labels: work
Monday, November 02, 2009
Met C's New(ish)Bloke at the weekend. I met C at the school gates, got to know her over mornings of coffee and evenings of wine. I was at school with New(ish) Bloke, in the sense that he was in the year above me, but our paths had never crossed. We had mutual acquaintances and bad backs in common.
He reminded me of what it is I like about people who don't intellectualise every last thing and, as a consequence, are often mistaken for people who think about nothing.
He reminded me of what it is I like about people who don't intellectualise every last thing and, as a consequence, are often mistaken for people who think about nothing.
Labels: real life
Sunday, October 25, 2009
At first we weren’t even sure we’d go there at all, it wasn't part of the plan.
Then it was decided, by mutual hardly spoken consent that we’d drive by: just to see. A glance off to the left - a reflection in the rear view mirror, a glimpse through trees - that would be more than enough.
But when we arrived it was Open Day and without hesitation R turned up into the drive and onto the car park, where it used to be all fields. Really, it did. Who even had a car in those days? Maybe that one girl from Devon and the other, who came back for the second term with freshly divorced parents and her own transport.
While prospective students and the parents of prospective students single mindedly sought out the shiny new accommodation blocks and asked their tabard wearing guides tough questions about the state of the art sports science facilities we roamed the empty corridors of the old halls, unchecked, trying really hard to remember anything of significance and almost totally failing.
Except...except that I do remember this particularly seminal staircase, and this view of Stanley and I'm sure the ‘photocopying suite’ was once the entrance to the bar (which, unsurprisingly, is totally ruined - there’s no way you could have a disco in there now. Or spend hour after hour lounging around willing something of significance to happen).
In Southport it was the same - street after street that we might never have walked down before, an unremarkable flat on a road we would never have recognised. Not remembering things was a recurring theme: alternating with sheer wonderment at all those miles we thought nothing of walking in search of a night out or a bag of chips.
No wonder we were thin.
Now, if only we'd understood that.
Then it was decided, by mutual hardly spoken consent that we’d drive by: just to see. A glance off to the left - a reflection in the rear view mirror, a glimpse through trees - that would be more than enough.
But when we arrived it was Open Day and without hesitation R turned up into the drive and onto the car park, where it used to be all fields. Really, it did. Who even had a car in those days? Maybe that one girl from Devon and the other, who came back for the second term with freshly divorced parents and her own transport.
While prospective students and the parents of prospective students single mindedly sought out the shiny new accommodation blocks and asked their tabard wearing guides tough questions about the state of the art sports science facilities we roamed the empty corridors of the old halls, unchecked, trying really hard to remember anything of significance and almost totally failing.
Except...except that I do remember this particularly seminal staircase, and this view of Stanley and I'm sure the ‘photocopying suite’ was once the entrance to the bar (which, unsurprisingly, is totally ruined - there’s no way you could have a disco in there now. Or spend hour after hour lounging around willing something of significance to happen).
In Southport it was the same - street after street that we might never have walked down before, an unremarkable flat on a road we would never have recognised. Not remembering things was a recurring theme: alternating with sheer wonderment at all those miles we thought nothing of walking in search of a night out or a bag of chips.
No wonder we were thin.
Now, if only we'd understood that.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
"sometimes I almost feel, just like a human being"
For the last sixteen days I haven't felt anything much like anything.
This morning however I am full of the frustration of realising that, if only I hadn't been feeling like shit, I could have spent the last two weeks doing - you know - all kinds of stuff. Instead I sat around under blankets, drinking tea and watching bad westerns. Also, it feels like I wasted Southport - maybe we could treat that one as a practice?
But this morning...no pain killers and no pain. I almost feel, just like a human being.
Lipstick Vogue - Elvis Costello
This morning however I am full of the frustration of realising that, if only I hadn't been feeling like shit, I could have spent the last two weeks doing - you know - all kinds of stuff. Instead I sat around under blankets, drinking tea and watching bad westerns. Also, it feels like I wasted Southport - maybe we could treat that one as a practice?
But this morning...no pain killers and no pain. I almost feel, just like a human being.
Lipstick Vogue - Elvis Costello
Labels: real life
