Today there are two windows.
One reveals another person, sat in another room, another building, doing other things.
The other shows me the outside of whatever is on its inside.
I’ve thought about the inside of that particular outside for a few months.
Not constantly, just now and again.
Now I look out and see the outside of the inside, and between it and I falls the rain.
It’s not heavy, just a drizzle, but you know as soon as you step out into it you’ll be soaked through in minutes.
If I look at the drizzle, from within my space with no lighting and sounds all of its own, I long to be outside soaking up the wet and the grey with my clothes and hair.
I remember looking outside when I was a school child, gazing across the hockey field at the church; all wrapped up in garments of trees and bushes and swirls of leaves.
I remember seeing the rain, between it and I.
The lights were off in the classroom too.
It had its own sounds; I never really heard them...
...some things never change.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Monday Morning 5:19
So, it’s been a long while since I last wrote anything up here. I’ve been very busy doing many things and I’ve just moved house, so it’s all been quite nutty of late. Also I dread getting a reputation at work for being an internet liability, so posting needs to be done secret squirrel style or not at all.
As I write this, I feel I must point out, one of the management team here is sat (sort of) over the table from me with her feet up on the shelves, crashed out asleep! I can hear faintly the peaks from Mozart’s Night Music from her earphones – ooop – and as if suddenly becoming possessed she just leapt from her chair coughing like a loon! Perhaps I should’ve offered her some water or even checked to see if she’s alright – but it all happened so fast the moment had passed by the time I considered it as being an option.
The music’s now changed to something I recognise but can’t name at this time. But it’s lively, loud and far from the kind of tune you’d imagine a colleague should be listening to when trying to snatch a moments kip on company time. Bless her.
Anyway, I’m not here to write about the chosen slumber patterns of my work colleagues. Far from it. I’d like to talk about reality checks.
I’ve recently relocated to a part of London I lived in many moons ago, when I first came to London in fact. On Saturday I took a wander, with my wife to be, about the streets of our new neighbourhood.
It was one of those beautiful crisp, dry winter days. Everyone was dressed in hats and scarves, protecting themselves from the wind that cut through the streets. It was a good day though, and as we were just out to wander we were able to soak up what there was of the town’s personality.
It was great!
Where we used to live, the streets would be awash with American housewives, or their Italian nannies, and various babies they’d agreed to look after for the day. If you saw a bloke wandering about he’d be the sort who wouldn’t know a screwdriver from a lump hammer; he’d be on his way to Waterstones to look up the name of a local mechanic to help him change the light bulb in the fridge. He’d look like one of those public school-types, permanently surprised by life and utterly incapable of working out how “the poor” can know so much about how things work.
Anyway, now the picture in our local town is much more gritty. The look on people’s faces doesn’t seem to say that time is of no importance, that money is of even less – the people we saw on Saturday were different. They were making the most of their time. Hard shopping and precise leisure. No nonsence. No numpties. No Americans and no babies!!
Pretty soon we’ll be able to go to a pub on Sunday and not be faced with bloody babies everywhere, being carried about by adults who all stink of nappy cream. The seats won’t have little bits of food in the seams and the tabletops won’t feel like they’ve been polished with spit and bogies.
Of course we’ll have to maintain our visits to Sainsbury’s where we used to live, because the supermarket we have on our doorstep is quite simply frightful. So many people with sour faces and the staff don’t even speak English. Shocking.
As I write this, I feel I must point out, one of the management team here is sat (sort of) over the table from me with her feet up on the shelves, crashed out asleep! I can hear faintly the peaks from Mozart’s Night Music from her earphones – ooop – and as if suddenly becoming possessed she just leapt from her chair coughing like a loon! Perhaps I should’ve offered her some water or even checked to see if she’s alright – but it all happened so fast the moment had passed by the time I considered it as being an option.
The music’s now changed to something I recognise but can’t name at this time. But it’s lively, loud and far from the kind of tune you’d imagine a colleague should be listening to when trying to snatch a moments kip on company time. Bless her.
Anyway, I’m not here to write about the chosen slumber patterns of my work colleagues. Far from it. I’d like to talk about reality checks.
I’ve recently relocated to a part of London I lived in many moons ago, when I first came to London in fact. On Saturday I took a wander, with my wife to be, about the streets of our new neighbourhood.
It was one of those beautiful crisp, dry winter days. Everyone was dressed in hats and scarves, protecting themselves from the wind that cut through the streets. It was a good day though, and as we were just out to wander we were able to soak up what there was of the town’s personality.
It was great!
Where we used to live, the streets would be awash with American housewives, or their Italian nannies, and various babies they’d agreed to look after for the day. If you saw a bloke wandering about he’d be the sort who wouldn’t know a screwdriver from a lump hammer; he’d be on his way to Waterstones to look up the name of a local mechanic to help him change the light bulb in the fridge. He’d look like one of those public school-types, permanently surprised by life and utterly incapable of working out how “the poor” can know so much about how things work.
Anyway, now the picture in our local town is much more gritty. The look on people’s faces doesn’t seem to say that time is of no importance, that money is of even less – the people we saw on Saturday were different. They were making the most of their time. Hard shopping and precise leisure. No nonsence. No numpties. No Americans and no babies!!
Pretty soon we’ll be able to go to a pub on Sunday and not be faced with bloody babies everywhere, being carried about by adults who all stink of nappy cream. The seats won’t have little bits of food in the seams and the tabletops won’t feel like they’ve been polished with spit and bogies.
Of course we’ll have to maintain our visits to Sainsbury’s where we used to live, because the supermarket we have on our doorstep is quite simply frightful. So many people with sour faces and the staff don’t even speak English. Shocking.
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