I have no work to be getting on with at the present moment, so thought it might be entertaining to while away a few minutes telling the story of my day so far.
It all started at 7:30 this morning when the radio alarm clock crackled to life with the strains of Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2. Isn’t it funny how (when the rest of the house and the neighbourhood are quiet) that you can hear really quiet things - like doors opening and closing at the far end of the street, the wind whistling through the gardens, and raindrops spitting gently against the windows as they are carried by the wind.
Raindrops. Damn and blast. That sound woke me up a bit more. That meant I would have to cycle to work with full waterproofs - and the wind meant the journey was going to be hard work.
I slid out of bed and wandered down for a shower - avoiding the cat on the way, who was doing his level best to break my neck. Why do cats do that? Walking in and out of your feet while you’re trying to get anywhere… once I fed him he sodded off.
I have this theory that no matter how early you get up, you never actually manage to get out of the house any earlier than other days. After getting dressed this morning “in theory” I still had about 30 minutes before I had to leave, but of course a multitude of small tasks cropped up that took that time and neatly filed it in the space marked “you never really had it”.
So I now have full waterproofs on, and make my way out to the shed to fetch my bike.
Bearing in mind that I ride a mountain bike about 3 miles each way every day, it always strikes me as amazing that I manage to attach more mud about my person during the 20 yard trudge to the shed than the several mile bike ride to work.
Every morning during the cycle through the streets of Marlow and down along the side of the river Thames to my place of work, chaos theory fills my mind. Let me explain.
In “Chaos Theory” there is a thing called a “Strange Attractor”. A good example of this is a piece of toast with butter on it. If you drop a piece of toast on the floor after buttering it, it will invariably land butter side down - with a statistical probability far exceeding the natural laws of physics.
How does this relate to me cycling to work? I believe - without a shadow of a doubt - that I am a strange attractor. I can be cycling along a mile long road, with one puddle along it’s entire length, and I can guarantee that I will be forced into that puddle by the one car that travels the length of the road at the same time I do. We will meet that puddle at the same time as each other.
Cycling to work also takes any of the wonder out of driving in towns and cities. I have predicted (and avoided) so many accidents involving pig-ignorant car drivers that it beggars belief. Something or other happens every day. Today, as I signalled to turn across a junction, a woman driving from the on-coming lane pretended not to see me, and drove straight at me (remember - I am 6’4C/3, with a huge reflective coat on, and a brightly coloured helmet). The scary thing is I knew she was going to do it before she started moving. The even more worrying thing is that I don’t see these incidents as unusual any more. They happen every single day.
I eventually arrive at the office and get out of my rain and wind soaked waterproofs.
While firing my computer up, one of the senior sales guys comes wandering up and is showing off his daughter’s PSP (Playstation Portable).
Me : “I thought that was your daughter’s christmas present?”
Him : “It was.”
Me : “Does she know you’ve got it?”
Him : “Umm.. well… she’s at school.”
Me : “So you’ve just nicked it to show off…”
(and so on)The rest of the morning degenerates into a series of fire-fights with the current help calls (halelujah - today is my last day on helpdesk for a while), meetings to discuss the help calls, and then I escape to the IVF clinic when W arrives to pick me up.
I’m now back - everything with the IVF is going fine - and I’m sat here trying to make the afternoon pass a bit more quickly. I wonder how difficult it might be to speed time up?