Blood was 5.3 this morning as the larks were turning over in their beds, thinking they’d have maybe just another half-hour.
My cab journey was frankly bloody weird – and yes, I mean that literally, as the cabbie with whom I’ve developed a friendly but ultimately meaningless chit-chat relationship over the couple of months of this UberCommute malarkey decided, out of nowhere, to take me through what can only be described as the ins and outs of an abortion – as experienced by his granddaughter this week. The blood, the pain, the hormonal swings and roundabouts (stopping more than briefly in the pit of despair over the doing of the right thing that may have turned out to be the wrong thing….but probably wasn’t)…all before 5.30 in the morning, and on what, thinking it over, I’m quite glad was an empty stomach. I’m almost fanatically pro-choice, but I do think the day needs to have really got itself going before we start on the pills and scrapers and suction pumps and burning of all the foetal cell-clusters it takes to strive towards a culture of sexual equality.
I think, more than anything, the thing that caught my attention at that admittedly bleary-minded time of day was that this was my cabbie’s grandchild – and he, I happen to know, is three years younger than me!
It also didn’t help that this is the last time I’ll see the guy for…at least some considerable time. Next Monday – no UberCommute, as d and I are both booked in for the delight that is a diabetic retinal screening (it’s basically a few hours of voluntary blindness, with occasional eyeball-poking thrown in – Party time!). The Monday after that – no UberCommute, as I’m going to London for two nights, starting on the Wednesday, to cover an event we’re running, and to catch up with my mate Wendy and her fiancée Ria. Monday after that – nope, no UberCommute – at least not on a Monday, as I have to talk to a committee on the Wednesday, and, as I get paid this week, I’m taking a stand against the UberCommute and its nightmarishly long days. I will go by train, dammit! Yeah, so what if we have no food money – that’s part of being a Disappearing Man, for gods’ sakes, it’ll be a Boot Camp Month! I’m done with buses for the foreseeable future.
Of course, it's vitally important, if one intends to travel by train in 21st century Britain, to either a) have a small estate in rural Berkshire, against which several mortgages can be raised, b) book three years ahead and be prepared to sit in the Guards’ Van on bales of hay, lowing like cattle or (depending on your preference and sexual flexibility) squealing like a piggy, or c) (UK-specific, 40-something gag ahead – if you don’t qualify, move right along, there’s nothing to see here…) be Lord Belborough from Chigley.
While pondering what there was to do in Cardiff at 6AM this morning, and having had my obligatory pee in the train station toilets (which frankly I think I do now more out of a sense of Russian Roulette – will today be the day I’m horribly butchered by a ranting alcoholic Welsh tramp in cubicle three?), I decided to play another little game. I wandered up to the ticket booth, and asked them, as if seriously considering it, what it would cost me to travel, one way, on a train, to London, if I bought a ticket right there and then on a whim.
“£Urghty-9.19” said the slapped-arse-faced woman in the booth.
“Sorry?” I asked, “£39.19?” I’m not exactly flush the week before payday, but as the thought of four hours on a pox-ridden bus began to pall, I thought I might push the boat out.
“Ninety-nine pound, 19,” she clarified.
“But…” I spluttered. “It’s one-way.”
“Yeah,” she sighed.
“In standard class,” I explained. Her eyes slid up the not-terribly-considerable length of me and fixed on my eyes with the sort of expression with which most normal people view something beige and indestructible in the only free stall in a public bathroom.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
“I didn’t say I wanted the whole train to myself!” I absolutely didn’t say, though the thought bounced around in my brain looking for a way out. Fortunately, at that time in the morning, it couldn’t find my cakehole. I raised my hat to the slapped arse and trudged my way over to the bus station, where four hours of interminable, gut-churning travel awaited me.
Still – today hasn’t been all bad. Got to meet up with my mate Brenda, and tried to put our mutual worlds to rights. As mine depends on an increasingly broad array of doctors, and hers is a right old emotional cat’s cradle, it’d be blatantly untrue to say we got very far, but while not getting very far, we got from Kensington to Hyde Park Corner and back, having a fairly highly-powered stroll to wake up our systems to the wonders of Disappearing.
I also got to help out a bloke called Terry – which I’d highly recommend as a tonic for any given day. Find a bloke called Terry if you can, and help them out. Puts a spring in your step and no mistake. And, as I may have mentioned before, came to the realisation that the bus on which I’m writing this will be the last long-distance bus I have to be on for at least a little while, which is more than enough to distract me from the fact that tomorrow I will almost undoubtedly be back in the realm of 15 stone some-odd. Still being rather zen about that whole thing, if I’m honest – no deranged emotional histrionics…possibly cos I’m briefly a little too knackered, but mainly, I think, because of the certainty that progress through my goal-stations will come in time.
Oh, and I got to briefly meet Dr David Bellamy, the beardy TV naturalist of a thousand lazy impressions in the late 70s and early 80s. I’ve actually sort of met him before…which is to say he once came and sat by me in the canteen (it’s that sort of place, my work). But neither of us said anything at the time…after all, why would we? In fact, neither of us said anything today either, so I guess ‘meeting’ David Bellamy would be something of a stretch to claim. Definitely met Maggie Philbin this month. I think the best I can really say is that I was briefly in the same room as David Bellamy today…None of which amounts to a hill of burps to anyone outside the UK, probably, but still, these little moments do help give a little glitter to days on which you spend about 11 hours on the road.
Trains, trains, trains, trains,
Trains, trains, trains, trains…wonderful traaaaaaains…
From now on. I have spoken!
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