Today is looking up. It has treated me well.I lay in. It was probably needed. I got up at what felt like midday, but was some time just after nine. I wrote, then dithered, then gathered myself onto my bike and swam. The ice had receded. The ducks on it were way back behind the line, in the last third, or even quarter, of the pond. The water still had its meaty bite, though. My breath was short. Not as short as Sunday, but I felt the cold.
Then a whizz down the hill to Kentish Town, where I locked up my faithful bike and trundled down to Bank on the tube. A lunch with Rob. Nothing better to bring me back to human life than a vibrant, ideasy, exciting meeting with someone I like and respect very much. I felt my creative head, the one full of possibilities, shake off the dust and start to wake up again. We have things to do. I'm going to need this time!
After that, a walk from Bank to Trafalgar Square, along by Blackfriars, Fleet Street, Covent Garden. I needed a Post Office and none revealed itself on the way, so I went to the massive one, which doles out four different types of waiting tickets. It's all enormously confusing, but I got there in the end.
Then a short stint at Royal Festival Hall on my laptop and a walk to the National Theatre to meet Sarah Lonton. A sane-maker to cancel out all the crazy-making that's been going on. A warm, creative woman with stories and wisdom and laughter coming out of her like water from a tap.
On the tube, a ginger-bobbed lady, tall and smart, sat next to me on the tube. We'd waited for some other people to leave and we'd been polite to each other. After a stop or two, some older ladies got on. They were cuspy, both of them. They were visibly much older than us, but looked healthy, strong and able to stand comfortably. There was only one free seat.
I must have been bristling a bit, ready to leap but not quite. Then Ginger Bob Lady leaned in and said, conspiratorially, 'Shall we both get up?'. So we did, and offered the ladies a place to sit together (thus saving any embarrassment about it being all about their age). They were happy and so were we. We smiled. She took the other seat, as my stop was coming up in one or two. A lovely moment shared. Thank you, GBL.
On top of that, a call from lovely J, and an email from Vic that I hadn't seen. Things are looking up, and the monsters are going back into the cupboard (probably for a nice, cosy sleep). There are things to be done in the world, even just this week, that don't have to be as hard as I was expecting. Perhaps they'll just be fun. Hard work and fun don't rule each other out. That kind of thinking sends a person crazy.
No need for that.
nice one GBL
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