I see I have missed blogging in a headlong rush of panic that dissipated last Thursday lunchtime, when the capability to deliver my urgent work arrived almost simultaneously with the knowledge that the customer was not ready to receive it. Deadlines still loom, but not in a sleep disturbing way, no longer to a frantic rhythm, just a small rush.
I was, anyway, going to take a day off on Monday this week. A sad excuse to catch up with family members presented. A sincere feeling of sadness, even though in the presence of slight hypocrisy on my part, shared in a religious structure, and a spot of gardening up on a windy hill. Then an opportunity to mourn, chat and celebrate in various measures.
Most of those present have not been seen for ten years or so. A cousin, who I last saw at his wedding, arrived with three children. I caught up on careers, classes, qualifications, subsidiary matches, hatches and other dispatches without once mentioning the fact that people had grown since we last met. How I have missed these people in the chaos of bringing up small children.
The weather was disturbed. Not a dignified frozen and still event, but a wind-swept, rustling, coat flapping one. The earth was damp and the trees shook. The vicar, her back to the storm, flapped like a tethered magpie. The people though, remained calm, unflappable, dignified. Quiet as, at times.
Having gone North with my family, I returned with my sister, and a train. A small entertainment, a distraction, for the weekend, was the procurement of cheap rail tickets for Monday evening. I booked these on a tablet device, eyes straining in the write-only form font, but made the simple error of using a debit card which the ticket machines could not read. The train-line's technical support proved pathetic, but, fortunately, the desk clerk was up to such a small challenge. We got our cheap tickets, and they were accepted by sundry machines along the way. The cross-London route surprised me, because I had forgotten it. A route I knew intimately only (only!) 14 years ago, the corridors, the platforms, which carriage to board. It soon came back and with such speed I had to wait an hour for my onward connection. Time at least to sit, to chew, to reflect and to smile about the people again.
