Delayed…Due to a Delay

Do you ever feel delayed in life? Like you’re not really going anywhere but you’re not really sure why? 

This morning, on Clapham Junction’s 6th Platform, I arrived to find the train delayed on the departure board.  Shortly after, a posh lady came on the tanoy, to tell me that, “The 9:08 Southwest Trains service to Windsor and Eton Riverside is being delayed, due to a delay”. Er, no shit Sherlock! 

There was no broken down train, no signalling problem, no passenger taken ill at <enter station here>.  To make things worse, not only was the train delayed, it was cancelled altogether.  

When you suffer with depression, life can be very much like that.  Outside influences can have a big effect on a depressive’s mood, but so can no reason whatsoever.  Sometimes, life is the outside influence, and there’s really nothing you can do to stop life.  Well, there is, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  

Sometimes you just have to wait out the delay, the cancellation, and take the next service.  It might take you longer to get to your destination, and you will probably end up being late, but always better late than not at all. 

People without depression will never understand why sometimes you can’t put your finger on why you feel mad, sad, bad and very occasionally glad.  But if they ask you can always give them the old train excuse: you were delayed, due to a delay. 

A Name On A Coffee Cup

She spies the cup on the table. Lid off. Its sleeve has fallen to the table, no longer needed by its owner to prevent burnt fingers that are already suffering from frostbite.
The cup, which is about a quarter empty, or is it a quarter full, she wonders, of brown liquid, has been abandoned by its owner.  
Mark.
That is the name emblazoned on the side of the cup, next to the familiar green logo. Surely it cannot be spelt right? It is probably Marek, or Marco. Or just perhaps they got it right for once. 
She thinks about Mark. Wonder what kind of job takes him from the Broadway into town. If he buys Starbucks every day he must be well paid, she thinks, before it occurs to her that she buys Caffé Nero soya lattes, one shot please, every day. It’s like a ritual, or is she obsessed.  
She skips her coffee today, in favour of catching the 9:08 Windsor & Eton Riverside. She has been late to work too many times recently. Already, stood on platform 6, she feels she is missing her fix. Maybe she shall take a leaf out of Mark’s book, and go to the Starbucks kiosk at Gunnersbury. Leaf. Tea leaf? No, Mark is definitely a coffee drinker. 
Could he already be drinking a second? No. His cup was still on the table outside the cafe, not joined by cups from Helen or Sanjay. He hasn’t been gone long. Long enough to hop on the Northern Line, north, not South. Not to Mordor. He’s probably passed Clapham by now, about to get off the tube at Stockwell and walk across the corridor to join the Victoria Line, also going North. Not packed today though. He takes a seat next to a man in his 50s reading about the death of David Bowie, and a woman in her 20s who opens her mouth as she applies her mascara. He opens his book. Hemingway.  
He’s a reader, as well as a coffee drinker. Yes, he read as he supped his morning coffee, and smoked his cigarette. Tried to quit last year, but the evil weed keeps him hooked. He can’t quit now, anyway, not with Amanda being the way she is. He is not ready to get married. She has been ready since she was 13. He always checks the condom after sex, and her pills in the evening, to make sure she’s still taking them. Sometimes she ‘forgets’. He remembers the last near miss.  
He is content in his life, but he knows that is because he glosses over the issues. Paints over the cracks. Layer, after layer, after layer. Layer Cake. I might watch that later on Netflix, he thinks.  
Later he arrives at work, for some reason craving another caffeine hit. Normally his morning Starbucks keeps him going until after 10am. But this morning he left some of it after receiving a call about an urgent matter requiring his attention in the office. He makes himself a coffee, his assistant Lula looking at him in surprise as he normally barks beverage orders at her.  Lula wonders if there are problems with Amanda again, not that Mark has told her this, only what she has gathered from carefully reading between the lines. As she watches him carry the cup out of the kitchen and stops to chat to one of the other partners, she wonders, and a smile plays on her lips as the fantasy plays in her head, the one where Mark proclaims his love for her and then makes love to her right there and then on the desk. Yes, Lula wonders.
She is so busy daydreaming that she does not hear her phone ring, the trill tone of an internal incoming call. 
Mark glares through the glass partitions of his office at Lula. Stupid cow, he thinks, slamming the phone down. Daydreaming again. Shakes his head. He is very fond of the girl, but sometimes her head is just not in the game. And in this business you need people who are totally committed to the game.
He thinks about Amanda again, and how he is not totally committed to that game. Far from it. He looks again over at Lula, and remembers how her hair fell over her face while she was dancing to The Final Countdown at the Christmas party. He thinks about Lula, and he wonders. 
As she gets on the Overground at Richmond, she wonders. And she thinks you can learn a lot about a person from their coffee cup. 

Picking Up The Pieces

As this new year starts, I am very conscious of the person I want to become.  Having explored this arena for the last ten years, I feel I am finally getting closer, day by day.  

Having read an online excerpt of Matt Haig’s new book, Reasons To Stay Alive, I headed down to Waterstones one lunch break to buy it.  I have it in my bag this morning, but haven’t started reading yet.  I’m still floored by having finished Disclaimer, by Renée Knight, a recent debut chart topper.  With reviews comparing it to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynnn, another book that had a profound effect on me, I know I can write something like it, something clever.  My mind fails me with logic sometimes (I am, however, plentiful in Jodie Logic) but I can knit together the perfect tale in my mind.  

As I wait for the train to leave Gunnersbury, I think back to the reason for writing this post.   I think back to being in the car during the Christmas break, and hearing Jess Glynne’s Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself on the radio, and vowing that I would not be so hard on myself this year.  I am my own worst critic; I don’t publish blogs because I don’t believe they are good enough to read.  I start but quickly abandon any form of fictional writing because I just don’t believe I can get it out of my head and onto paper without it sounding stupid.  The minuscule amounts of creativity that bubble to my surface are quashed because I  just don’t believe in myself.  So when I say I can write like some of the current bestselling authors, I do believe I can; but there is that other part of me, the one that says no you can’t, don’t be so stupid!

Buying my soya latte this morning (a recent experiment to see if I was lactose intolerant which has really become a morning ritual), I decided to buy a gingerbread man (I do realise the epic faildom of screwing up my gluten-avoidance with this action by the way).  Anyway, the first gingerbread man I picked up and put down again, because I could see that his leg was broken off.  As I put the packet back and selected the perfect one behind it which was intact, I had second thoughts, and instead picked up the broken man I’d originally had in my hand.  

Don’t be so hard on yourself, I thought.  And don’t be so hard on broken gingerbread men.  They’ve done nothing wrong.  

  
Happy New Year everyone. 

Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself – Jess Glynne (2015)

Jogga-Blog to the Moon

So last night I talked myself into going for a run. Actually I ran last Monday too, although I don’t think I blogged about it (despite it being world news). Anyway, I run along by the river towards Richmond, where I am greeted by the wonderful sight of the big red house on the hill. Last night the view was even more outstanding, as it had a big red moon to go with it.

Today I ache, a lot more than last week, but it was worth it.

I wanted to end this blog with a song about the moon, but I’m saving that for my next post. So instead I’m going to leave you with a bit of INXS, who kept me going on my run last night.

Disappear – INXS (1990)

Little Miss Grumpy

I am so grumpy this Monday morning. Thank god for Fleetwood Mac is all I can say. It’s definitely softening the edges of this razor-edged mardy from hell.

Let’s Read and Make-up

A few months ago I wrote a blog about doing my make-up on the tube on the way to work, all the while being eyeballed by a little girl. Today, I was also doing my make-up on the train, although I’m glad to say this is a one-off, as I am at least organised enough to make-up my face nowadays before I leave the house.

As I painted my face, the little girl, who was about nine, read her copy of Stylist magazine.

Since I moved to Twickenham, I no longer get a copy of Stylist every Wednesday. The guys outside Twickenham station try to give me a copy of City AM every day, but who wants that financial mumbojumbo (not me anyway – probably those that have loads of money already and are in the business of making more).

Anyway, I’m glad the little girl got her copy. At least someone around here knows her priorities.

Labels on a Train

Beautiful.
Money.
Forget me knot.
Prada.

On a survey of four consecutive people getting on the train this morning, these were the words on their clothing or accessories.

Isn’t it interesting what our items say about us?

Beautiful was by no means the prettiest woman in the world, but she had her own sense of style.

Money looked like it was an aspiration, but not a current state.

Forget me knot was a fairly normal girl, but probably not one that you would forget in a hurry.

Prada looked like a fashionista to me.

Maybe we are defined by what we choose to wear or carry.

In my hand right now is my Travelcard in its case, a freebie I got from an author event given by the flowery-accessories lady, the lovely Cath Kidston. To mark the 20th anniversary of being in business, having opened her first store at the age of 34, the age I was at the event, she had written a book about the experience. At the time, I couldn’t afford a copy for myself but bought two personal signed copies for friends who both love her stuff and want to go into business for themselves. The name of the book is Coming Up Roses.

So back to your items defining you. I don’t feel like it’s long now, people, until this homelessness will be behind me and I’ll be coming up roses.

Musings of a Slightly-Damp Commuter

The rain rains. The sun shines. The rain rains.

Why does the rain not get its own word for what it does? Of course, the rain can lash it down, bucket it down and piss it down, but in the general term of what it does, it can only describe itself.

Maybe, like me, rain is what rain knows best. It’s all it can do. Sometimes it will be a drizzly rain, hardly worth mentioning really. On other occasions it can be so torrential that hundreds and thousands count the months (and the cost) of its consequences. But at its core, that is what it is. Rain. It can never be anything else.

It can aspire to be torrential, but if this is at the detriment of others, is it really worth aspiring to?

Like the rain, I will continue to do what I can do, sometimes at the most inappropriate times. I mean, someone should really tell the rain that heavy downpours in August, our supposed summer month, are not appropriate or welcome.

At the end of the day…it gets dark. Nothing else. The rain will…rain. The sun will do what it does so much more gloriously, and shine. I will try to channel a bit of both, using the rain to cool and calm me rather than adding to its outpouring with my own tears.

Get Your Legs Out For Yourself!

So according to an article in today’s Metro, the miniskirt is 50 years old. It must be pure coincidence that in my mid- (and soon to be mid-late) thirties, my skirts seem to be getting shorter.

The one I have on today is by no means a miniskirt and was in fact a gift from my mum a few months ago, however, it appears to have shrunk in the wash. Either that or it’s enjoying creeping above my knee.

I’m sure there are those who would argue that short skirts shouldn’t be worn by anyone over the age of 21, but I disagree. What’s wrong with showing a bit of leg? I mean, nobody wants to see any more than that, especially not in a work environment. But if you have the legs to do it, then why not?

I remember when I was 15, I went for my first job interview at Stapleton & Co Estate Agents in Lincoln. At the end of the interview, my future boss, who would probably have been in his 40s, told me (rather reluctantly I’m sure) that my skirt was too short. Which was a shame because it was a lovely pink one…

Anyway, that was my first lesson in office etiquette. Don’t wear short skirts to work, especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of bending down.

That was 20 years ago, and I’m not sure I’ve really learnt anything from that. I am lucky where I work that the dress code is not too strict, and on Friday we are allowed to wear jeans to work. Well blue jeans – since most people wear black jeans in the week.

I mentioned in Does My Belly Look Big in this Changing Room? that during my twenties, my legs had remained behind the denim wall of my jeans, escaping only on a rare occasion or on a beach holiday in Tenerife. But, with the possible exception of my nose (and my eyes), I think my legs are my best asset.

So, at the age of 35, I plan on getting my legs out a lot more. Maybe I will be too old to wear short skirts one day, but not yet. Hallelujah to Mary Quant and the other designers of the 60s, who encouraged girls to get their legs out. We salute you.

Two Blogs and a Blow-Dry

What’s wrong with this picture? I’ve written two blogs (this being the third) AND I’m on the tube that gets me to work in good time, with straight hair and make-up.

In an attempt to sound more positive, I’m going to state, not ask, what is right with this picture. Everything. Let’s hope I can keep this up all week.