It occurred to me at 5-something this morning, having stayed up all night, mainly to do final packing, partly to remind myself how rock 'n' roll I was, and also, partly, to give a chance for any second thoughts to surface in the grim December small hours, like prodding an emotional gum-ulcer, that I couldn't remember where I lived.
I mean, while actually sitting in a flat in which I've lived for about six or seven years, I had no concept of where it actually was.
Now I know I'm Significantly Geographically Challenged, but that's saying something. I found myself trying to work it out from the design cues around me but, of course, there weren't any. I was in a box the colour of porridge, and I couldn't have told you whether I was already in Wales waiting to move away, or in London waiting to move to Wales, or somewhere else entirely, waiting to so...something else. If you'd pushed me for an answer right about then, I'd have chosen c).
Mind you, my general discombobulation probably wasn't helped by the fact that, having decided to ride home in triumphant style and splashed out on a first class train ticket, it transpired, at about 11 o'clock last night, that our hordes-of-locusts removals men had accidentally...moved my ticket. To Wales. It's sitting there now, in one of many many boxes, sneering at me. I got into the office early this morning (as Virgin came and took away my modem yesterday), and called up the train company. To be fair, their attitude of "What a dickhead! Merry fucking Christmas, asshole!" is perhaps at least moderately justified - I did, after all, put a vitally important train ticket down during a house move. I'm surprised I didn't qualify for a festive kick in the knackers while I was about it. Mind you, I still have to go through Paddington station, so I guess there's still time...
Indeed, I ended up having to pay more money for a scum-we-wouldn't-deign-to-clean-out-of-the-buffet class ticket this afternoon, because now of course, having taken my house keys round to the letting agent at the crack of still-bloody-dark this morning, I am now officially homeless for about twelve hours. I mean, granted, there's homeless and homeless - I'm not about to pop the cap off a Super lager and go looking for Arthur, but at least technically, I exist in non-space and non-time right now. I'm neither a Welshman nor a Londoner, although I daresay there are quantum physicists who'd be able to prove that I'm actually both simultaneously, illustrating the inherent absurdities of our linear concepts of time, space and self-identity.
Well, this is one Schrodinger's Cat who's taking to his paws right about now, in a nod to sharply accented determinism. This is the Disappearing Man....Disappearing - but don't worry, I haven't popped out of the space-time continuum altogether. I'm just dabbling with faster-than-light travel for an afternoon. Well, faster than sound travel...oh wait, this is British rail we're talking about...Faster than a leek that's been pushed uphill by an asthmatic Daddy-Long-Legs using sprouts as primitive wheels...
Yeah, faster than the speed of leek, baby - we're on the Valley Lines now...See you on the Welsh side, innit mun...
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