Written Tuesday 21st May
This working week has started in much the same way as it's recent predecessors. With a packed diary based at the opposite end of the country to my home and family, I have to accept the reality that Monday to Friday will be a tightrope walk - trying to throw myself into the exciting challenges of the project Im working on but also to spend the right time (and the right times) with those that I love the most.
As a result I find myself in Caffe Nero at Clapham Junction, trying to map out the day ahead's events so that I can dive in on autopilot, see everyone and do everything that I need to and be over two hundred miles away at tea time.
Yesterday I finally admitted that my job really does require a lot of time in London, by buying an Oyster card. There was something about doing this that felt like defeat, even though I know it's just a more cost effective way of doing what I do at the moment. It doesn't make me any less rooted in the North West, but it makes me feel like one of the masses that I commune and commute with once I reach Euston. Normally when stood on an underground platform, I console myself that I've left this grind behind - that I'm a visitor, a tourist, an outside observer of the rushing, pushing and crushing of London travel. The Oyster card is a frightening reflection of the reality of my working week and of being sucked back into the world I turned away from 13 years ago.
I've tried making conversation with the person opposite me - but they just smile awkwardly as if to indicate that I've broken the golden rule. "This is Clapham Junction station at 7:30 on a weekday morning - we don't talk we just rush - got it!"
