I have just realised via my friend who after 13 years away from real and changing life as we know it…….I have just realised that I have come to accept so much of the unacceptable. The copious pressure of life. Ordinary life. Life that shouldn’t be a part of the 21st century. Backward, broken life. Why have we become so accepting of things that don’t work properly? Things or situations that are genuinely uncomfortable? Nothing works in London. Everything is a chore. We have embraced hardship. We have embraced difficulty and awkwardness and have learned to live with it. We have learned to be governed by machines. Phones – texts – e mails – never out of touch. Always contactable but never entirely neccessary. Perhaps these are the assorted ramblings of a mad woman but I am currently feeling awfully out of sorts with everyday London life. I dare say life in the ‘cuntry’ is any different….Where to go? Where indeed? When on earth was there ever a traffic jam at 11.30pm at night and why? For god’s sake. What am I doing in Victoria? I am on the Hades bus – the trip to nowhere very slowly indeed.
Two lumpy spinster sisters with matching soft rosy cheeks have just sat down one beside and one opposite. They are eyeing my scribble with disdain. I have two bags – one crammed full of work papers and personal post that I haven’t had a chance to open over the last few weeks. Try explaining that to the boring bank people that waste world time by calling you up to remind you that you have missed a payment.The other bag is bright mustard yellow and has a pair of high heeled boots in it. No one understands. Doubtless I will be able to decipher this myself in the morning as I am scribbling from the back of the bumpiest bus in the world. The two spinster sisters are trying to read what I am writing but it is so quickly and bumpily written it is almost in code. Only my champagne-scrambled brain will be able to work it all out in the morning. Bloody hell.
Sloane Square – is that all? Slow slow slow.
Feet up on opposite seat now – Route79 wouldn’t approve but it is the only way I can steady myself. The sisters got off at Beaufort Street. They probably share a mansion flat. No more peeking. No more speculating. Just back to their lonely cells. They both looked so out of time and place. A throwback to goodness knows when. Disappointed not-very-pretty debutantes that no one wanted to marry.
Perhaps I got too used to black cabs from an early age? I could always justify the cost of a black cab. I used to be a nightbus afficionado but graduated to black cabs with ease by the time I was 21. Now I am the scribbly lady – scrabbling scribbling into her notebook on the bus.
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