It all started yesterday evening. During the second leg of my train journey home from Paddington to Bourne End I woke with a start. I have never fallen asleep on the train before, so it came as something of a surprise.
While gathering my senses, and glancing around at me, I noticed a lady across from me looking at me. While something in the dark recesses of my mind wondered why she should be taking an interest in me, I realised I could feel dribble on my chin.
Upon glancing down, I spotted the results of my virtuoso dribbling display on my tie. Wonderful. I had no idea how long I had been asleep, where the train now was, or why on earth my body had decided to regress 30-odd years, and remind me how to dribble.
After finally getting home, I decided on having a break from the website development work I have been doing (a huge modification of a content management system - another story for another day), and watched rubbish television for the first time in ages. I had forgotten how theraputic terrible television can be. I valliantly tried to stay awake throughout the evening, and was about to go to bed when I thought “I wonder what’s on the movie channels?”
I finally climbed the stairs at just gone midnight. The flick through the channels turned up “Million Dollar Baby” - the movie with Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank that I had never seen. Why did they have to ruin a great movie by breaking her neck at the end? (sorry for spoiling it if you’ve not seen it).
So. We reach this morning.
The alarm went off at 5:55am, and I seriously considered not getting out of bed. Some kind of autopilot at the back of my mind eventually kicked in after watching the seconds tick by until 6:25, and my legs carried me towards the shower.
I don’t really recall the first hour of my journey in this morning. I’m guessing I started to wake up at about 7:45, when a rather pretty girl sat down opposite me on the train towards Paddington. I’m guessing she picked me because I wasn’t taking up two seats, I wasn’t old, I didn’t look like a pervert (which a great number of people on trains do for some reason), and I didn’t look like I was going to make conversation - head buried in a book as it was.
We finally arrived in a rainy London at 8:15, and I dropped into the London Underground - picking up a copy of “Metro” (the free morning newspaper) along the way. They had a double page spread about the UK Blog Awards - the first time I have read anything remotely interesting in Metro, and obviously getting a huge kick back from SixApart because half the article promoted Vox - the social network du jour.
The eastbound circle line train appeared after a few minutes, and I jumped aboard. While reading the blogging article, I thought I heard a guitar, and glanced around. That’s strange - that chap with the long hair is tuning his guitar…
As soon as the doors closed and the train set off into the subterranean abyss, the long haired chap burst into activity.
“Good Morning ladies and gentleman - I hope you don’t mind long haired Australian weirdos playing guitar this early in the morning - how about a bit of David Bowie to start your day with?”
What followed was a dimented period of thrashing the poor guitar, and a passable impersonation of Mr Bowie - only you couldn’t really hear it over the sound of breaking strings.
During the second verse (after burying my head in the newspaper a bit further) I realised that this guy was doing the classic - and highly illegal - busking trick. Walking onto train carriages, waiting for them to set off, playing a few versus of a track, and collecting money before the train arrived at the next station and he might be caught in the act.
It’s perhaps the second ever busker I have seen in a train carriage. The first was on the Paris Metro - an Albanian boy playing the accordian that could have been no older than six years old. This was an order of magnitude more clinical though - as the train slowed into each station the guy pulled the hat from his head, and ran up and down the carriage requesting donations to his unwanted performance - and of course british people being what they are, they were too well mannered to tell him to sod off.
Unfortunately for buskers attempting this moving train trick, the London Underground on a morning has a slight problem for an aspiring performer - arrival at any station can turn a calm, roomy train carriage into a meeting of the professional sardines association within seconds - which is exactly what happened when we got to Kings Cross. Unless the guy had been able to play his guitar as you might a Cello, he had no chance - and silence reigned once more.
The lesson learned this morning is that if I had not got out of bed, this little adventure would not have happened (or at least, I would not have been present to experience it), and therefore this blog post would never have happened.
There is probably a message somewhere here about seizing the day, and other such “Carpe Dium” maxims. To write about life, you need to live it - and that requires getting out of bed on a morning.