The alarm clock on my mobile phone beeped into life at 5:30am. I had been awake since just after 5 - watching the minutes tick down, drifting into and out of sleep. Long forgotten commuting muscle memory carried me down the stairs, got me through the shower, into clothes, and began filling my bag for the day ahead.
Hello again London - it’s been far too long.
Like an old friend, the train sat on the platform, hissing occasional puffs of smoke, and rumbling in an expectant manner. After finding a seat and fiddling with my iPod for a few moments, a shadow loomed over me - the colleague I would be travelling with, puffing a little after underestimating the walk to the station and rushing the last few hundred yards.
London hadn’t really changed. The idiosyncratic ticket barriers at Paddington Station have largely gone, but the armies of the ignorant remain - rushing to wherever they go, oblivious of everybody except those in their way.
The London Underground was reassuringly broken - the Circle Line spectacularly so.Earls Court tube station still has hilariously bad signage - surely the place to photograph bewildered tourists when the Olympics comes to town.
Despite it’s flaws - and there are many - I enjoyed being back. Back in the workplace that had been my home for a couple of years - back among the sweaty masses - a nameless face in the crowd.