bus ride without a book

I tried unsuccessfully to get technical on the bus this evening by blogging from my mobile. Instead, my phone won the Gadget VS Woman battle and I resorted, shamefully, to using a pen and paper. How awfully archaic.

I love nabbing the front seat on the top deck of the bus. At the bus stop, I’m one of those annoying people who subtly (or not) inch my way to the front of the queue in order to be one of the first to tap my oyster and dash up the stairs to claim my spot. Not exactly playing it smooth and obviously not nearly as cool as sauntering casually towards the back seat of the bus but from the front I get to take it all in. Admittedly, most of the time I just sit and read but I like to have the option to look up once in a while, spot the odd wierdo and decide that people are terribly strange. Frankly after a long day in front of a computer screen my brain isn’t capable of much more (quick note to prove my point: in my notebook I spelt else as “esle”. See, brain dead).

This evening, much to my disappointment, there wasn’t much action out on the streets, hence my blogging to pass the time. Therefore, there is little of interest to report and makes for a pretty boring read…but so was my bus ride! I spied a few rowdy teenagers (halfterm), a vast number of cyclists (annoying fit and healthy people), an ex-work colleague (ooh, we never quite clicked– glad I’m on the bus) and many, many people talking on their mobiles (yeah, but try blogging). Two stops from home I conclude that some days are more exciting than others. And tomorrow I really must remember my book.

where have all the happy books gone?

I love to read and over recent months have been churning through books faster then Speedy Gonzales can say "¡Andale! ¡Andale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Yii-hah!". However, I’ve found a lot of this reading to be mostly unpleasant due to the subject matter of my chosen literature. For some reason I seem to be picking up book after book full of doom-and-gloom involving humanitarian crises, abuse and death. I fully appreciate the importance of exposing ourselves to these things in order to remind ourselves that we live in a world where there is great need but books are a form of escapism for me and seriously…five books in a row is too much for one person to handle!

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton came highly recommended by Mom who omitted to tell me that I might need to pop a couple of Prozac when I’m done. The book takes 650 pages to pick up and then ends 5 pages later with the death of a women who lived her entire adult life with a horrible, life destroying secret. There, now you don’t have to go through the same torment as me.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a short and surprisingly good read considering the author, Jean-Dominique Bauby, wrote the entire book by blinking his left eye while confined in his own body by locked-in syndrome. Not much feel good factor there either.

After gathering many months worth of dust on my bookshelf I finally summoned enough courage to attempt reading Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns detailing life in Afghanistan. Why, why, oh why did I not think to take a back-up book on holiday? Graphic descriptions of unbelievable abuse and hardship don’t feature high on my checklist of what makes a good holiday read.

Okay, enough! I’m helpless. I can’t save the world. I can’t stop people’s pain. I need a happy book! So I scan the shelves at Waterstones and pick out The other Hand by Chris Cleave who claims it holds a secret that can’t be divulged on the back cover. I’m intrigued. So I include it in my 3-for-2 offer and within two days realise that the reason they don’t tell you what it is about is because it’s depro. Argh! And now I can’t tell you what it’s about either or the author will probably hunt me down and make me read ten other books just like it as punishment for giving the big secret away.

Right. I’m left with little choice but to turn to the queen of chick-lit, Marian Keyes. Her latest novel, This Charming Man, starts off in her usual light-hearted tone and I start to relish each page of girly antics. However, this is not the book to break the cycle. For within its pages are excerpts containing insights into the horrors of domestic abuse. While hugely relevant I think I’m going to give my heart a rest after this one. I can only take so much before I’m likely to crack and I’ll have to be rushed off to Charing Cross A&E on account of tear induced dehydration.

It’s now a case of self preservation. Perhaps I’ll pick up a few copies of The London Paper and find out what’s happening with Lily, Kate and Amy. And for half an hour in my day I might be able to pretend I’m naive to what is going on all around me. But then again, maybe that’s not what I really want to do at all.

the land of socks

There is a land where lost socks go. No matter how much exploration is dedicated to discovering it, this place will never be found by humans. I imagine it is a very colourful world where no two socks are the same. Because this is not a land for pairs but rather odd socks that have escaped a life that would otherwise be spent on someone’s smelly foot. They have abandoned their other half to lie useless in a sock draw. Sometimes, if two socks of a similar colour and style have been deserted by a partner, a loving human such as myself will try and pair them together. Perhaps not a match made in heaven but it surely beats facing the unthinkable when the next spring clean comes around. Some may even find their way to the Jolly Gardeners on a Sunday where they can be made into sock monkeys and then sit gathering dust on bookshelves until the novelty wears off and they end up in the rubbish anyway. There just isn’t much hope for those who are left behind.
But those who live in the Land of Socks have no cares for such afflictions. They go undisturbed and possibly see their days out until they disintegrate to their initial state of lint.
The reason I have been thinking of this place is that I was faced with somewhat of a “prodigal sock” moment last night as I lay in bed, reading my book. Try as I might, I was unable to even out a lump in the sheet and after deciding that it was not going to go away, I delved deeper to investigate. Imagine my surprise when out came a white gym sock (clean) from between the mattress protector and the sheet. I had been looking everywhere for that little rascal! Perhaps the Land of Socks hadn’t been all that it had imagined or maybe it decided at the last minute that it didn’t want to go and clung for dear life to the sheet during the spin cycle.
I gladly reunited my gym socks and thought of those in Fox’s drawer that lie discarded in the hope that their partner might materialise one day too. I think it is probably too nice in the Land of Socks.

musings on london life

London is a funny old place. I have these moments when I just stop and observe the chaos surrounding me. While waiting for a severely delayed bus this evening, I attempted to calm the inner voice that was screaming from anxiety at the thought that “I had to be home ten minutes ago” by just taking it all in. As I tuned out shouts of “Free Evening Standard” and tried to retreat to my happy place whilst fending off six attempts to hand me a free newspaper I watched those who were rushing past me at an exhausting pace. Having just disembarked the tube where I was stuck under someone’s smelly armpit from Earl’s Court to East Putney I stood at the bus stop considering why on earth anyone chooses to live in this crazy place? With five years of London experience now under my belt I feel I’m at liberty to highlight the uniqueness and oddities of the city I call home.

There was a moment on the tube a few weeks ago when a lady tried to make conversation with those of us on the carriage about the unreliability of the London Underground. We simply stared at her for all of four seconds and then simply continued about our business of pretending we were the only person on the tube that morning. When did I become such a Londoner?

A torturous amount of time had now passed while I waited for the 430 bus and I could no longer resist the temptation of a freebie. ARGH…if only the bus had come two minutes earlier I might have held out. So, I accepted the next offer of the London Evening Standard and used it to distract myself from the thought that I had some stranger breaking the personal space barrier when the bus finally arrived. I did come across a feature written by “Paddington Bear” which spoke of exactly the London life I had been contemplating. I thought his words were rather apt: “There are a lot of things you need to get used to if you live in a big city like London.” Phew! My heart hasn’t turned to stone, I’ve simply adapted to my environment. And as much as this city might drive me totally mad at least once a week, there’s no place I would rather be right now. As Paddington says, “When I count my blessings, living in London is top of the list, with marmalade* a close second, I know I shall never. ever. get tired of either.”

*FYI, personally I really don’t like marmalade but I didn’t think it right to misquote Paddington.