The new normal

I am back at work; charging so very fast towards mid-December when I will qualify.

It is good to be working again, and to feel useful and skilled, but I'd forgotten how busy and chaotic everything can seem when I am working.  I am trying to remember to use my commute as a way of easing in and out of the working day. 

These past three weeks, I've been working in Hackney - very close to home.  I commute by bus, which is far more frustrating and unreliable than taking the tube, but has more interesting views.

 

I'm tired, energised, busy, constantly carrying around a heavy bag of books and clothes, losing track of which day it is, spritzing hairspray on my up do, texting the children to remind them to do their chores, feeling full of purpose...and also starting to feel a little bit as though this is the new normal.  And this is A Good Thing.  

Books and sky

We went to North Yorkshire for a week, and camped on the edge of Dalby Forest on the North York Moors.  I realised that one of the most important reasons I love camping is because it forces me to slow down and do nothing.  

We went for long walks during the day, and in the late afternoon and evening I passed the time by reading (four and a half novels in five days - what a treat!) and gazing at the sky.

That's it - books and sky.  

But honestly - what more do you need?

Commuting

I have the nicest commute at the moment.  I work strange hours so I'm never travelling at peak times, which means the tubes are not too rammed; most of the time I can get a seat.  I just have to travel six stops, and I can get from home to work in about half an hour.  

The hospital is in the City - an area of London that I know very well because I worked there when I was an accountant for many years.  I find myself taking out my phone and snapping pictures every day, because this part of London is just so photogenic.

Road trip

We drove back home from Mum and Dad's on Sunday.  They live in South-West France, so it's one heck of a drive.  The part through France takes eleven hours, and when the ferry and the drive up through Kent and into East London are included, the whole journey takes around sixteen hours.  

I've always rather enjoyed long road-trips.  I did a few when I was at University and studying in America for a year, although I still have the classics on my to-do list: Route 66 from Chicago to LA, and the full East to West Coast trip, New York City to San Francisco.  When I was living in Australia, in my early 20s, I drove from Brisbane up to Cairns which is still my longest road trip (nearly 24 hours in driving time, although we spread it over three days).  In 2010 the children and I took a road trip from France to Switzerland, and then back along the German border to northern France and home.  That remains the longest trip I have done without someone else to share the driving.

We're used to the long drive down the length of France.  It starts with rolling off the ferry very early in the morning, and then we drive down the Calais peninsula, admiring all the wind turbines along what the French call the 'Autoroute des Anglais', because every other car (at least) is English.

 

All along our journey, the main role of whoever is navigating is to avoid Paris AT ALL COSTS.  I am well used to the mad, fast, often intolerant driving that goes on in a capital city, and I actually used to drive around Paris a fair bit when I was younger and working there, but I wouldn't want to do it now.  Paris traffic is either at a complete standstill, or moving eye-wateringly fast, and you need to be unhesitating and precise in your navigational skills at all times.

Much of our drive through France is on the autoroutes.  French autoroutes are owned by private companies, and most charge tolls to drivers.  However, the tolls are pretty modest - our eleven hour drive costs around £30.  I'm more than happy to pay because the autoroutes are such a pleasure to drive on - quiet, incredibly smooth and well-maintained, and well supplied with 'aires' (service stations).  Some of the aires sell petrol, food, magazines and are parked up with hundreds of trucks and cars, but others are just a selection of picnic tables and parking spots in a little forested glade, set back from the motorway.  On our way down we found a particularly nice one somwehere south of Orleans, where Olivia did some sunbathing and Graham did some yoga stretches (our journey down was the day after his marathon, so sitting in the car for 16 hours was tougher than it would otherwise have been for him).

We have flasks of coffee and bottles of water for drinking on the go, and a plentiful supply of chewing gum (neither Graham or I like long drives without chewing gum - is this strange compulsion just us?).  The children are plugged into their iPods, and spend the whole time reading.  Whoever is driving gets to choose the music for the front, and the passenger is not allowed to argue with the driver's choice.  Graham and I take it in turns to drive/choose music for about two hours each. 

The temperatures rise steadily as we get further south, and finally we turn off the autoroute and drive down small, rural roads for the final forty minutes or so to Mum and Dad's house.  We all know these roads so well, and Graham and the children and I all look out for the landmarks that tell us we are so very nearly there.  Coming back home, there is always a strange moment of disconnect when you get off the ferry at Dover, and England now feels like a strange and foreign land - so used are we to French voices, driving on the right and the sight and smells of the French landscape.

And then it's done.  The car engine is turned off, we all get out, have a stretch and start unloading bags.  If we are arriving at Mum and Dad's there are excited hugs, delicious wine and a hot meal before bed.  If we are arriving back in London there is the excitement of seeing the hens again, the comforting familiarity of being back home, and a mental calculation of how many more months it will be before we can get back in the car and do it all over again.

    

Seen on the tube - very early one morning

Central Line - Leyton to St Paul's

• A young man, loudly chewing gum and trying to spike up his hair with the palms of his hands.
• A teenage schoolboy asleep in a corner seat, rubbing his eyes occasionally.
• Five builders in a row. Each wearing multiple layers of jumpers finished with a tatty grey hoodie, plus steel capped boots and shaven heads; each clutching a can of redbull and with a hard hat on their lap or by their feet.
• Two women, heads together, handbags tightly clasped on their laps, whispering intently before one passed the other a wad of folded money

Leaving the house at dawn

 

The early morning tubes - before about 7:10 - are full of semi-asleep builders.  They are very peaceful trains, with an air of respectful pre-dawn camaraderie amongst the travellers.  I don't usually get a seat - even at that time - but I lean against a pillar, reading my Kindle and looking up occasionally to watch everybody else doze.  It's a surprisingly unstressful time of day to travel.

Barbican

I arrive at Barbican station each morning. 

It has long been one of my favourite stations on the whole tube network, because of the view of the Barbican estate tower blocks stretching up above you when you step off the train (when I win the lottery I will live in one of the appartments near the top of these towers).

 

The enormous recessed arches on the eastbound platform are the other delight.  I admire them as I walk past in the morning; and I lounge within them, feeling tall and elegant as I wait for my train home in the afternoon.

 

Seen on the tube

Central Line - South Woodford to Mile End

• A husband and wife, both tired and sleepy.  Him with his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer; she picking lint off the knee of his trousers.
• A young lady with long purple fingernails, reading a Kindle in a purple suede cover, and with a purple handbag tucked tidily between her feet.
• A pregnant woman in a suit eating her way determinedly through three apricot cereal bars.
• A woman with wet hair frowning in concentration at the oven manual she was reading.
• A young man in a beautifully tailored charcoal grey suit, with chunky rings on every finger.

On top of the tube at South Woodford

Seen on the ferry

P&O, Calais to Dover

The White Cliffs of Dover, seen from the ferry

• A tired Dad making a cosy nest on the floor for his wriggly toddler, out of coats and a beloved blanket.
• Two teenage French girls tucking into a breakfast feast of ham baguettes, boxes of salad, cheese and crackers, pains au chocolats and Evian water.
• A middle-aged man with a sun tan, sitting next to the window and working his way steadily through a wordsearch book.
• An extremely pregnant Dutch lady buying five different bottles of perfune in Duty Free.
• A rather harassed looking school teacher trying (and failing) to round up a class of Year 7s wearing matching purple hoodies with Ski Trip Austria emblazoned across the back.
• A woman in pyjamas and a slouchy woolly hat telling everyone how seasick she felt.
• A grandfather saying to his grandson, "Everything's all right now I've got my Sunday Times."

Waiting to drive off the ferry and back into England

Seen on the Tube

District Line - Mile End to Kew Gardens

• A lady reading The Highway Code and sighing heavily.
• Two work colleagues, heads bent together over an open lever-arch file, looking up at each other shyly when their hands accidentally brushed together.
• Two elderly trainspotters, with notebooks and cameras on their laps, loudly discussing the points system at Willesden Junction.
• A young lady, with a cascade of spectacularly curly blonde hair, sitting very still and poised in a corner seat.
• Two Japanese teenagers, with matching spiky rubber covers on their iPhones, sitting on the floor of the carriage and chatting quietly.
• A young man wearing a trilby hat at a jaunty angle and carrying a jute shopping bag with House of Commons printed on the side.

Pink and white camellia bloom at Kew

Blue skies and magnolia blossom at Kew

This post is for Tracy and Kristina, who shared a glorious day out with me at Kew, and who liked Monday's post so much.

Me and my boots

When I wear my boots I feel as though I could walk on forever.  Their sturdy weight makes me feel as though I have an almost magnetic attraction to the ground.  I feel rooted to the earth with boots on my feet.  And yet they don't feel heavy, and I don't drag my feet; when I lace them on I just want to set off on a long hike and never come home.  That combination of solidity and energy that they give off is a pleasing contradiction.

I've only ever owned two pairs of walking boots.  The first pair I bought when I went to University.  They took me on treks along the Norfolk coastline and then they travelled to whole other contintents - America, Australia and Asia.  I walked up mountains and along beaches in them.  They went with me to New Orleans, Singapore, Toronto and Cairns.  They finally fell apart on a long, boggy walk in North Yorkshire.

In Queensland, Australia - 1995

My second pair are more sturdy and rigid than the first, which I prefer.  They are made by Gelert and I bought them at an outdoor shop in Snowdonia about seven years ago.  These ones have not been to quite such exotic locations, but have still served me very well on the cliffs of Pembrokeshire, on the Thames foreshore, all over Yorkshire and Cumbria, up the Swiss Alps and across France.  I'd love it if Gelert had made them with a built in pedometer so I could see how far I'd walked in them over the years.

In Tarn-et-Garonne, France - 2011

My feet are trained to know what to do when I lace on my boots: put a flask of coffee in my bag, grab a map and go.  Walk.  And keep on walking.

Seen on the Tube

Central Line - Leytonstone to Oxford Circus

• A man in a black nylon jumper, deeply asleep with a completely serene expression on his face; his fingers laced together neatly in his lap.
• A young man with red headphones, reading The Mail on Sunday and frowning.
• A smart young lady surreptitiously slurping a McDonald's milkshake, hidden inside a bag of shopping on her lap.
• A young man with green headphones, chewing gum and dozing lightly in between stops.
• Two people in thick wool coats, sweating heavily.
• A young woman with her hair in a high ballet bun and a stud through her right eyebrow, smiling at the photos on her pink iPhone.
• A tired middle-aged woman holding a polystyrene cup with three dark red roses in it.

The view East from Hungerford Bridge, at sunset last night. Waterloo Bridge in the foreground and the City behind.

A day out

Trains are a good way to come home after a day out, because you can stare out of the window and think.  With me on the train late this afternoon were teenagers heading for an evening out, mothers heading home with snuggly toddlers, young men carrying guitars, and weary workers, with supermarket carrier bags hooked over their arms, leaning against the doors.

I wondered about their days and reflected on my own: chatting, listening, sharing, laughing, eating, comparing and relaxing with friends.  We had planned to spend the day crafting, but in the end spent more time eating cake and drinking tea and coffee than knitting.  You know they're good friends when you're too busy laughing to knit more than a row of shawl.

But it was such a productive day in other ways.  I came home with ideas for new things to try, support for the things I am doing right now, and a liberating new technique that will completely revolutionise the way I finish my knitting.

Many thanks to my friends:

• Little Cotton Rabbits
• ...the sight of morning...
• Domesticali
• Dotty Cookie
• Quilt While You're Ahead
• Silverpebble

And especially Dragonfly, for organising us all.

Friday afternoon

It is the end of the week and my mind is full.  Full. Of. Stuff.  I feel a little spaced out as I walk to the tube station to pick up O from school.

Everywhere I walk I see patterns.

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The exercise and the cold sunshine did me good and cleared my mind.  This weekend I shall mostly be reading Dombey & Son, in an effort to fill my mind with Something rather than just Stuff.