Time after time

I woke up feeling refreshed this morning. A quiet night in and a good sleep was much needed, and I had plenty of time to ready myself before heading to the station to get a train. I was due to meet a friend and Sunday was looking good. Then I noticed the time. My alarm clock hadn't registered, nor had my watch, but my phone was telling me it was an hour later than I thought. Panic set in, and a quick check revealed that British summer time had snuck up on me unexpectedly. A quick shower and shave and a dash to the station followed. I arrived just in time, only to find that my train was delayed by half an hour. Apparently due to signalling faults, which I assume means the driver also forgot to change his clocks.

Cold Calling

So a strange thing just happened. At 6pm on a Friday evening I get a call from an unknown number in Nottingham. Fearing an automated PPI recording, I gingerly pick up the phone to reveal an actual person, apparently calling from EON energy. She's made a good start by choosing my energy supplier, which means there's a chance she's genuine. She says she's calling to discuss my account, and asks whether she can check a couple of security questions. I have no idea why my account needs discussing, and am reluctant to answer security questions that might pass on personal details. I feel like asking her whether I can ask a few security questions, but I run with it. Having successfully proved I am who I am and where I live, she tells me that she's been reviewing my account and I am several hundred pounds in credit. She needs an up to date meter reading to prove this, and I oblige, and after several seconds of tapping on a keyboard she confirms that I am still several hundred pounds in credit. She asks whether I would like a refund of several hundred pounds and a reduction in my monthly payment. I say yes, and after several seconds of tapping on a keyboard she confirms that the refund will arrive with me in a week and that my monthly payment will be reduced by £90. This seems too good to be true.

Part of me is still wondering if I've just been robbed. Or whether somehow during this conversation she has gained important knowledge that will lead to a fraudulent attack on my account. I guess I'll know when the several hundred pound refund turns up or not.

Another part of me is wondering why I was paying such an amount to begin with if, after just a few months of living here, I have somehow accrued such a sizeable credit. How do they work it out?! Why was it so wrong? Did they assume I was a family of four? Or an elderly gentleman with a vulnerability to winter chills? Is the default setting an assumption of massive heat loss from the property?

Whatever the reason, it is potentially the best random phone call I have had in some time. I shall have to reduce my automatic cynicism in future. Unless of course I am robbed in the next week.

Time waits for no man

I sit here waiting. Waiting to meet a friend. My friend was due to pop to mine so we could head out and have lunch together. But it's now 1:45 and I'm starving.

We were only having lunch together because we failed to have morning cake together. We had arranged to meet in town late morning, but the plan was flexible due to my friend's work commitments. So I duly headed into town and sat alone for 45 minutes until I heard that my friend was no longer able to make it until lunch time.

We were only having morning cake together because we failed to have a drink together last night. We had arranged to meet in town late afternoon as my friend had an appointment. So I duly headed to town and waited at the agreed spot for 30 minutes until I heard that my friend was no longer able to get there in time to meet before the appointment.

We were only having drinks together because we had failed to meet in the office that afternoon. We had arranged to meet in the office for a catch up, but the plan was flexible as I had a meeting. When my meeting ended, I duly headed to the office to meet my friend, until I heard that my friend would not be able to get to the office before I left.

Having failed to meet in the office, we have failed to meet for drinks in town, failed to meet for cake in town, and we are now apparently failing to meet for lunch. I have made myself available at every opportunity, but still I am drinkless, cakeless and lunchless, and perhaps even friendless.

Maybe that would be no bad thing in this instance.

Capital Punishment

I was born in London but don't remember it from my childhood as we moved away before I was two. I've never had any great desire to return to live there. I don't feel any great affinity with the place, and the hustle and bustle of so many people tends to make me feel like a fish out of water. I'm just not built for that environment. But I do like returning as a visitor in small doses, for a number of reasons. Mostly because I have lots of friends who live there, but also to see the differences in way of life, people, and behaviour. Being an outsider makes it easier to observe, to comment, and yes, to judge. A recent trip gave me the chance to do all of these things.

Trains: gliding towards London courtesy of network rail we pass open fields, lush green pasture and meandering rivers. These are the places where people wave at trains. I have no idea why. I've attempted a waved return on several occasions, and am yet to forge a strong friendship with anyone as a result. I doubt they could see my salutation. In the city, where the trains slow and weave between high rise blocks of flats, stuffed full of residents, nobody waves. Surely here more than anywhere one should jump at the chance to befriend commuters and visitors alike. London has a sense of impersonal anonymity that I like and dislike in equal measure. It's totally possible to disappear into a crowd here. I like the variety, the ethnicity, the independence of the place. On the other hand, it feels like a billion tiny atoms all whizzing about invading each other's personal space and occasionally colliding.

The underground: this is a very recognisable symbol of our nations capital, a masterpiece of engineering and enterprise, tired and jaded but still chugging away under the streets like a great metallic snake pit. There's something very Hitchcockian about the fast approaching crescendo of a tube and subsequent squeal of it's brakes; the inadvertent gusts of wind that spring up and die out of nothing in the great tunnels and stairwells; the solitude of empty carriages on late nights out and the dangerous proximity of total strangers in crowded commutes. Why do the handrails on the escalators move ever so slightly faster than the stairs, so that, if you chose to lean against the handrail, the angle of your lean becomes ever more precarious until you lose your balance, falling upwards into the backside of the person ahead of you. Unless of course they are in the same predicament, in which case you all topple forward like a giant set of dominoes.

Oyster Cards: what a wonderful invention this is. A system of pre-paid ticketing that allows you to travel unhindered through the transport network, only pausing periodically to ensure you have enough credit to continue your onward journey. The problem with oyster is that if, like me, you are usually it infrequently, there's inevitably a moment at the first barrier where you suddenly realise that you have no idea how much money is on your card and you nervously tap it against the reader, hoping that you are not refused entry when half of London seems to be queued up behind you. People assume that other people are always in credit and move forwards with unnerving speed, so much so that a barrier refusal results in a huge pile up. It's like watching the riderless horse in the grand national pulling up short of the fence and running across the oncoming traffic in a sideways bit for freedom: horses, riders, handbags, attitudes and expletives are all sent flying. And the barriers do not accommodate baggage or large people. You have a mere fraction of a second to pass through, with all of your personal belongings and dignity, before the barrier closes. Any errant suitcases or umbrellas left straggling get shut into the barrier, and a grumpy attendant, who's only job can be removing stranded people from the barriers, comes shuffling over and tuts as though you had any possible alternative route. 

Business attire: having agreed to meet friends in a central location, we all converged on a small area of pubs near Green Park. It was 5:30pm, and we should have known better. The working masses were spilling out of nearby offices and streaming like flies towards the nearest watering hole. All of the pubs had well dressed clientele overflowing onto the streets outside - some with fag in hand, all with drinks, and all wearing impossibly ironed shirts and sharp cut dark suits and polished black shoes. In my mind they were talking figures, profit margins and who to sack. My jeans and brown shoes combo stood out a mile - who'd have thought I could look out of place in this most accepting of cities. But the continual stream of high heels and shiny cars and discussions of property prices put me firmly in my place. I imagine most of these people would look equally lost if I took them on a tour of Salisbury Plain: like a great herd of suited wildebeest about to cross a crocodile infested river. 

Despite my apparent unease, I actually enjoy these trips. It's great to catch up with friends, to remove myself from the antiquated charm of Salisbury, and to observe life in all of its glorious variety.  I love the pace, the scale, and the feeling that I'm constantly starring in a music video-either a 'London virgin' video that sees me gazing in wonder out of a train window as reflections of tall buildings whizz by on the glass, or a 'coming of age' teen romp in which something from the American Pie soundtrack blares out while I play Frisbee in one of the London parks with tanned mates. Ironically enough, on the way there, Third Eye Blind's 'Don't wanna go to London' came on, and on the way back it was Ed Sheeran's 'The City'.

Visiting the capital also reminds me how lucky I am. I hate the commuting and the claustrophobic dirtiness of the city. I feel captive in London, unable to stretch and breathe. But mostly I feel confused: bewildered by how everything and everyone operates in such a chaotic environment; overwhelmed by options, choices and decisions; bemused by my feelings for my birth place. I love and hate this place equally - a bipolar dichotomy of steel, glass, parks and people. London is all things: a centre, a catch up, a playhouse, an antithesis to my comfort zone, nostalgic, whirring, errant, and it continues to draw me in and spit me out exhausted at the other end. 

K is for Kite

I had a moment recently that neatly encapsulated the reasons why I do what I do. I was on a train, and during the two hour journey I spent the vast majority of the time engrossed in my kindle. And yes, I was reading a book about birds. Well, about loss and solitude and the comfort found in birds. Anyhow, I glanced up for a few seconds at one point and saw a red kite floating over Woking. For those of you familiar with red kites, and I hope that is many of you now, this sight may not be unfamiliar (at least the bird, if not the location!).

It dawned on me that this single bird in that moment represents the culmination of many years worth of conservation effort. When I was starting out on my birding trajectory, aged about eight or so, this species was on the brink of extinction in the UK. No kites bred in England, and just 20 or so pairs clung on in a part of west Wales. As a young birder heading to west Wales on a family holiday, this was the main target on my overly optimistic wish list of birds for the trip. On our last morning, despite the rain lashing down, a single kite rose up above the skyline and danced across it for just long enough for Dad to stop the car and for the whole family to experience it together. It only lasted a few seconds but in that brief time I think even the less geeky members of my immediate family shared something that we all knew was special.

Since then, concerted efforts in many locations have seen kites returned to much of the rest of the UK, with reintroduction programmes across the country. One of the earliest was in the Chilterns, and kites have now firmly established themselves in that area. Anyone who drives along the M40 will likely see a dozen or more in just a few junctions. And I hope everyone who does shares in the enjoyment of watching such an acrobatic bird twisting and turning it's way through the skies with it's massive frame and it's rudder tail.

Much as my first encounter with a red kite was brief but memorable, this latest sighting brings to mind all of the work done in the intervening period to establish this species back across our countryside. The fact that I could spot this bird when barely paying attention, above a reasonably large urban area, without making any effort at all, shows what successful conservation work can look like.

Running Wild

I saw a strange thing yesterday. I saw two joggers. That wasn't so strange in it's own right, but the fact that both of them had opted in the slightly chilly conditions to run along with their hands in their pockets made the whole experience a lot stranger. They looked like two penguins making a dash for the bus.

This confirms my long held belief that jogging is simply not an enjoyable form of exercise. Presumably they had their hands in their pockets because they were cold, in which case the jogging doesn't seem to have achieved it's major function. Certainly it did nothing to improve their jogging performance. I'm yet to see anyone in a marathon take up this particular pose to assist with aerodynamicity, speed or athletic function in any way.

I guess the appeal of jogging lies in it's simplicity. Anyone can do it without needing specialist kit, equipment or a venue, other participants or money. You can literally decide to start jogging and within a matter of seconds have achieved your aim. Unlike, say, football, where you ideally need other people, a ball, somewhere to kick it and possibly specialist shoes to do so with. To that end I get it. But where's the fun? Its not that social, it's unbearably monotonous, and I can never silence the tiny voices in my head telling me that my ankle is sore, my breathing irregular, and I should, under no circumstance, continue jogging. At least I can understand the appeal of being able to do it in some fantastic outdoor locations. I can't think of anything worse than doing it on a treadmill at the gym where I have to pay £28.50 a month for the privilege.

Perhaps I've just never been any good at jogging. Maybe, despite it's apparent ease, I'm actually rubbish at it. I've done a couple of half marathons and posted a respectable time, but I mostly did it for charity and as a personal challenge. It certainly wasn't enjoyable in the same way as a win at hockey is. I had no enthusiasm for training and I know I couldn't go as far as the marathon without some serious effort.

I have a sort of unhealthy respect for joggers like the two I saw. I applaud their determination in the face of complete idiocy. I admire the people dedicated enough to put themselves through hell on a cold wet evening just because they need to do some exercise. And I even recognise that some of us enjoy team sports, where instinct takes over, while others prefer a strategy or plan and the opportunity to escape into your own mental solitude. But if you're really not enjoying it at all, I would suggest stopping and looking up other alternative ways to keep fit. Don't 'just do it' for the sake of it.