DELICATELY BEAUTIFUL

Apparently I look Spanish. So said the pastor, anyway. I've chosen to take this as a compliment, as of course, the Spanish are delicately beautiful.

All this came from a group conversation about style, and in particular, the cultural style difference between Americans and us. Q very wisely pointed out that style is a really personal thing, that you just match your own style to your personality. I agree - I've often felt my mood become affected by my choice of clothes and I feel most chilled, cool and comfortable when I'm dressed to match.

Q too is remarkably 'stylish', it has to be said. He always looks extremely well turned-out.

What I can't agree with is that this connection between the wearer and the garments means you can then judge a personality by its choice of clothing. This is where the Americans come in - we watched a video today, in which an exuberant and uber-cool American burst out of the screen to tell us how to do Christianity better. It was middle-England meets the superfly pastor, and it was fascinating to watch the collision of cultures.

But style is subjective. You make it yourself and build on the classic lines of your own personality. It's not our place to get sniffy and start judging Americans.

And that brings me on to another point. It's actually casual racism. How come it's acceptable to make jokes about Americans being brash, fat, obnoxious gun-toting simpletons? I think that's offensive... and I hope you do too... but if you listen carefully, you'll hear it everywhere, just like you'll hear a lot of other hidden and unchallenged opinions.

Actually, us Jesus-Followers, we're supposed to straddle culture, to span the great divides that society creates, with love and acceptance. We're supposed to lead the way in it! The aliens are supposed to be welcome inside our tents, not referred to like outcasts on the end of our tongues. I might not like the style, I might struggle to understand the cultural differences that separate us like the Atlantic, but I'm not going to let it stop me loving people, not even for a moment.

But then I would say that - I'm delicately beautiful, like most Spaniards, right?

WHERE TO GO WHEN SHORT-CIRCUITING

I've chilled out a bit now. A walk around the lake helped, and as the evening sun winked through the trees, I was able to get a bit of perspective.

I'm still not sure why I get these little panic attacks. It feels like there's something not very well-connected in my brain sometimes, like wires that are flapping about. When they short-circuit, everything flips into anxiety mode and I'm spiky for a while. I'd prefer it if those synapses could wire up into genius formation rather than mild-paranoia. I'm getting better at overcoming it though.

Today's been quiet. I got shot with plastic ray guns again and had to pretend I was dead. I fell full-face into some bits of Lego, which only helped to strengthen the pained face which is traditionally required of recently vanquished aliens.

When my agitators had gone home, I went for an afternoon walk around the village. I watched an over of cricket on the green (more resarch). The fielding team threw the cricket ball to each other in between  balls, then the bowler scuffed the crease, walked off behind the umpire and ran in to the pitch to bowl. A flurry of arms in the air, out came the ball, bouncing firmly onto the bat which punted it away to a tree in the distance. One of the fielders sprinted while everyone clapped and shouted, and then the man who'd reached the boundary threw the ball back to the bowler. I've got no idea how to throw something that far. The last thing I threw was an apple core, and that only just made it to the railings on the other side of the road.

There was a young tree growing there by the lake, planted in memory of Jeff Hunt 1930-2015. I stood by the plaque and watched the little sapling catch the evening breeze between its green leaves. It all seemed quite poignant - an old man returned to dust, and a sapling with thin, tender branches and green leaves lapping up the sunshine. This is how life is supposed to be - the memories of the past and the hope of the future. That's why, I guess, I don't mind getting blasted with plastic ray guns and I'm not all that bothered about having the shape of Lego bricks imprinted on my forehead. Life finds a way to remember backwards and hope forwards.

A deer bolted out of the bushes and pelted away from me into a cloud of midges, and then it leaped into the undergrowth next to the lake. The trees rustled in the evening sunllight and the birds twittered and squeaked and squawked as they splashed across the glistening water. I've got to remember that this is the place to go whenever I have one of those little meltdown moments - even if it's just inside my head.

A GREAT DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE

I'm having a little moment. Something is not right and I don't know what it is. My heart is pumping and I feel awkward as though I need to have a sit down... but I'm already sitting down and that doesn't seem to be helping.

The Stress Monitor card says 'green' which is 'normal' but I don't think it is because most of the time it's 'normally' blue. So clearly, I'm a bit stressed, worried, panicking about... something. That can't be 'normal'...

Oh pull yourself together. That's what they say isn't it? Alright. I'll grab one end of me, then I'll grab the other end of me and start folding and tugging and pulling and squashing until I'm 'together' and that'll be great, will it?

I doubt it too. If I could just figure out what it is that's making me feel like Obi Wan sensing a 'great disturbance' in the Force... maybe that would be OK, you know, a way to tell myself that it will all be alright.

There's another little voice in here too. It's telling me I shouldn't be writing about these things. You can't let them see you having a bad day, it whispers. But I want everything to be real. I'm not an actor, performing for everyone who knows me! This isn't supposed to be a polished monologue that you could launch into on a stage somewhere - it's supposed to be real, and the reality of the moment, the now (whether you care or not) is that I'm feeling a bit anxious.

The script says:

Ben rubs his forehead. He seems to drift into a trance. Then he fixes his gaze on Luke.

Ben: You'd better get on with your exercises.

Han Solo enters the room.

Han: Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs. I told you I'd outrun 'em.

Luke is once again practicing with the lightsaber.

Han: Don't everyone thank me at once.

Meanwhile of course, Alderaan is no more - blown to pieces by the Death Star. It's all about perspective this, isn't it? I might go for a quick wander round the lake.

Han: It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

Ben smiles quietly.

CHILL-OUT-MINUTES DISCIPLINE

I walked into the kitchen this morning and boiled the kettle. We have a hot water boiler but to be honest it doesn't really live up to its name. You know where you are with a kettle.

Plus, with the kettle, you've got a couple of those all-important chill-out minutes. You know what I mean - extra minutes to slow life down rather than dashing in, whacking a tea bag into a mug, slopping lukewarm water over it and then pacing back to your desk. You've got to love the chill-out minutes.

I took a walk around the kitchen and found myself by the table-football. It was then that my naughty brain started up.

"You could hide the ball," it whispered.

"What? No way!" I exclaimed, inside my head.

"Ah go on, it'll be fun; you like a little fun. There it is, right there in the goal. It'd be so so easy... besides no-one will ever suspect it was you."

I started imagining the Finance Guys coming in at lunchtime, searching everywhere for the ball, desperate to play table-football. I'd sidle in and listen to them chatter while they anxiously looked through cupboards and under tables. It wouldn't be long before they started blaming the cleaners or rolled up a ball made of paper or sellotape or something.

I wouldn't like knowing I did that.

"No way," I said, deciding, "That is so childish."

The kettle bubbled and clicked, and I made my tea. Where in the world had that mischievous little thought come from? If I'd been clever enough to hide the ball somewhere ironic that the Finance Guys would definitely find (that would also give them a laugh) I might have been more daring - but this whole idea of spoiling someone else's noisy fun suddenly seemed really pathetic. I've never been one for practical japery for that exact reason - I'm just not clever enough at it.

Perhaps there's also a bit of discipline to learn with these newfangled chill-out minutes? I mean creating more time (or rather borrowing it from somewhere else) opens up a roomful of mischief and temptation. The devil, we're told, makes work for idle fingers. Horrible things have been done by bored people. Mind you, some of the world's greatest discoveries also happened by accident to people with nothing better to do.

Speaking of which, I accidentally just typed the word hooray with a capital Y at the end of it. It looks strangely appropriate. There you go, you can have that for free. Use it wisely.

HooraY!

STONES AND HEROES OF OLD

Bank Holiday today, so the Intrepids and I went to Avebury. It's like Stonehenge but better - a Neolithic ring of 6,000 year old stones built on a rampart. No-one knows why they're there.

The rocks are huge unhewn monoliths, some about 6 feet high and spaced around the circle, embedded firmly and immovably in the green grass. Their ancient faces are weather-worn and moss-covered, jagging out of the ground like stone teeth.

My favourite theory is that the stones formed a sort of complex for ancestral worship. I don't approve of ancestral worship (for one thing, my ancestors were pirates) but I do quite like the idea of each stone representing someone who has gone before, a hero of old. That seems like quite a cool way to remember a person and their legend - their stone as unique in strength and stature as they were, no two stones the same, yet all standing together between this world and the next. I pictured them gathered there like a colossal hall of fame, an island of gravestones, surrounded by a moat of water and the tall trees of a long-forgotten forest.

My Dad and I wandered around the Avebury ring, taking in the size of the place, while Mum had a cup of tea in the cafe. Stonehenge, at least what's left of it, is surprisingly small when you see it up-close: Avebury is much less famous, and much more accessible, allowing you to walk between the stones, to touch them and climb them and marvel at the 6,000 year-old mystery of their origins. 

Another theory is that these places act as a sort of natural clock to mark out the seasons. Certainly, Stonehenge could have been this, the sun winking as it does through its arches every summer solstice. Avebury even looks a bit like a clock-face, the stones marking out the numbers around its circular plane. I don't think so though - I'm not sure of the mechanism. It was much more likely to be a place of significance - you can sort of feel it when you're there.

I wonder what kind of stone I would leave behind? I wonder what kind of tales would be told by my children and theirs. Would it be tall? Would it be wedged into the ground by a corner? Would it be squat and sturdy, simple, or carved like those Easter Island statues? What would it say? What would they say? I reminded myself of something the Bible says about us being living stones, built together, forming something... well, something special where our uniquenesses combine to change the world. I hope they could say that.

"Right, I suppose we should be getting back to your Mother," said my Dad, swinging his golf umbrella. He looked anxiously at the grey sky rolling overhead and started strolling across the grass. I looked back at the stones. Nobody knows those stories of old, nobody has any idea of the legends whispered by stone-age children as they peeked through the misty forest towards the clearing of the stone circle. The heroes are lost and all that remain are their stones. 6,000 years is a long time.

LISTENING TO CRICKET

I fell asleep listening to the test match this afternoon. This is all part of my plan to find out more about cricket: how it works, what the rules are, how to understand the language. As the summer yawns open with the satisfying knocks of English willow on New Zealand leather, I thought I might as well give it a jolly good go. Plus, for the purposes of catchup, I should explain that some time ago, I accidentally volunteered to organise a cricket match for work.

The commentators on the radio were discussing moustaches.

"No no, it was one of those long droopy ones," said one of them, remonstrating.

"Handlebar?" asked the other.

"Gosh no - those have those twiddly bits sticking out don't they? No, it was more long and sort of melancholy and... I say!"

"Yes, that'll go for four out there over extra cover. Marvellous footwork."

The crowd erupted with applause which crackled over the radio.

"So it was more of a horseshoe shape?"

"Ah yes, that was it, the horsehose. Ridiculous. Have you ever considered a moustache, Tuffers?"

"Me? No. Things'd get stuck in it, wouldn't they?" said Tuffers, joining the conversation. "Mostly foam, I expect."

"Shaving?"

"Beer."

They all laughed.

I must have dropped off shortly after that - I can't remember anything else. England were 'levelling the playing field' at one point, which struck me as a bit of an odd thing to do, and someone said the next hour and a half would be crucial. Ninety-something for three, whatever that means. Clearly, it couldn't have been that crucial or they wouldn't have been discussing facial hair during a national sports commentary.

Later, I found out that one of the England batsmen had displayed a masterclass in batting his innings against the New Zealand bowlers. He scored a hundred runs from 80-odd balls, which is one of the fastest test centuries in English history. It turned the match around and boosted confidence in our much-lamented cricket team.

I slept right through the whole thing, dreaming about handlebar moustaches.

A THEORY ABOUT CATS AND DOGS

There's no doubt that cats are deviously clever at finding ways to be at the centre of the universe. Have you seen the Internet? 'Treated as gods in Ancient Egypt,' someone once said, 'and they've never forgotten it.'

Recently though, I've started wondering whether dogs are one step ahead of cats and are simply smart enough to keep shtum. It makes for a happier life - after all, cats scratch and hiss and claw and scream when they don't get their way - yet they're adorable wide-eyed fluffballs when they do. What if dogs worked this out years ago and have just decided to keep the peace?

If so, it means both dogs and cats are living in a world where they both think they've got one up on the other. The cats prowl around thinking that dogs are so stupid that they can't possibly understand what they know, or appreciate the finer tastes of feline fancy; meanwhile dogs, smile to themselves, knowing that if anyone ever broke into the house, there would be no doubt about which of them would scarper under the table, and which of them would try and rugby tackle a burglar.

This provides a rather elegant equilibrium, don't you think? By not complaining, by pretending to be hopelessly enthusiastic about everything and not quite in control of their faculties, dogs create a sort of comfort zone for cats to feel like the real rulers of the galaxy. How splendid, the cats say to themselves in the middle of a lick, to be overlords of the canine cretins.

Meanwhile, the dogs exchange the tiniest of glances.

'Do you think we'll get to play stick?' asks one. 'I love stick, it really gets me thinking about the nature of life as an ultimately futile construct of pursuit and reward.'

'Don't forget to pretend you've lost it,' says another, 'You know just in case they're watching.'

APPLES AND A FORGOTTEN ENTHUSIASM

Rough. I creaked open my eyes and gazed at the misty neon numbers which were swimming in the darkness. They told me it was 3:30am. I shuddered with cold and pulled the duvet tightly over my shivering body. I was ill.

You know, when I was younger, I think sheer enthusiasm kept me healthy. They say, don't they, that the mind and body are connected - is it possible that simply enjoying life is the best way to avoid illness? Could it be that a constant stream of 'happy' chemicals flowing through your system might be enough to fight off those viruses and pathogens that render grumpy people bed-bound?

I'm not suggesting that bed-bound people got there because they were grumpy by the way! Oh my, I'm not suggesting that at all; I'm just wondering if there is a connection between emotional and physical health, buried beneath all the complexities of human physiology. Laughter's a good medicine, but I doubt that it's always necessarily the best.

I dragged myself to work, munching an apple and sniffling. I love an apple, and they used to say that an apple a day kept the doctor away. There's cyanide in the pips though, so you know, everything in moderation. I slumped into my chair, hoping I wouldn't have to talk to people as my throat felt like a cactus and my eyes were burning red with irascible rage. Just focus on the screen and type.

Sheer enthusiasm. I just felt happy and safe back then, I think - and I had a youthful optimism about the world. I never missed a lecture and I only ever had one day off school (comically, it was the day I was awarded a 100% attendance certificate). I was a lot of things that I sometimes feel like I've forgotten about. Somehow, life became more queue than roller-coaster.

Work was followed by choir, which I struggled through and then came home from. I exerted all my energy in trying to make choir practice as much fun as it could possibly have been but it was massively hard work, conducting tonight. Plus, I made a joke which no-one got and found myself laughing alone in front of a group of blank faces.  

"You need to go home and get some rest," said someone, kindly. I nodded.

STATUE

I'm feeling a bit run-down today. I'm not quite sure why that should be - a cup of chamomile tea gave me a tickly throat yesterday and that's turned into a bit of a cough.

I got up early today and wrote a poem. I should do more of this - it's quite liberating, even if my poetry's not all that great. It's fun to do. This one's about being a statue, and it will make a lot of sense if you've ever read any C.S. Lewis. I think I might turn it into a song...

STATUE

Stone dead, silent
Just a sculpted solid heart
In the gardens of despair
Like a fading work of art

Cold wind, empty
Where the winter shudders by
All I am, set in stone
Under frozen depth of sky

O Lion come and find me
In the gardens of despair
Come and breathe upon this hardened heart
And take me away from there

O Lion come and rescue
Come and wake me from the deep
Come and dance upon my brokenness
And sing me from my sleep

Statue, frozen
By enchantment of my own
Crumble gently to the wind
In a prison made of stone

Long since, summer
When the sun was strong and high
Have I longed to hear the roar
Have I longed to hear the cry

O Lion come and find me
In the gardens of despair
Come and breathe upon this hardened heart
And take me away from there

O Lion come and rescue
Come and wake me from the deep
Come and dance upon my brokenness
And sing me from my sleep

WET TRAINERS

"Did you get stuck in the hail?" asked Louise. I did. Thankfully I had had my umbrella with me when the giant hail stones had started pummelling the Earth.

Wasn't it one of the plagues of Egypt? I guess I should be thankful it wasn't frogs pelting Theale High Street at lunchtime.

Not to mention the angel of death. Anyway, enough of this - it hailed: massive chunky lumps of ice ricocheting off my umbrella like frozen ball-bearings. I took shelter in a doorway and watched them hurtling into the pavement.

This is the reason I had to do my performance appraisal in my socks. By the time I got back to the office, my trainers were sopping and my feet were swimming inside my socks. I detest that feeling - I mean I really hate it. It's the soggy, swampy, misery of wet toes, of water splurging and squelching around your soles with every step. It was all I could do to unpick my laces and prize my trainers off as soon as I got back to my desk.

The appraisal went OK. I kept my stocking feet squarely under the desk, hoping that I could avoid accidentally poking a damp toe into one of the floor ports. Electrocuting yourself during your performance review is perhaps not wholly conducive to your career progression.

In fact it was all going OK until I had to make an unscheduled trip to the Gateway to Hades. I don't like going in there at the best of times, as you know. The three cubicles remind me of a disturbing game of the Monty Hall Problem. Plus (and I'm putting this delicately) some people have very different ideas about what you might win when you open the door. There was no way I was going to brave the portal to the underworld in my socks.

So on went the wet trainers. There's only one thing more unpleasant than wet trainers and that's taking them off and having to put them on again. The cold clammy fabric sticks to your dampened socks and your feet squirm into the shoe with a squelch.

I've just looked it up. It was hail and fire in Egypt. I can't complain, that would have been much worse than wet trainers.

MICHAEL BOLTON

So for most of the afternoon, I couldn't stop imagining Michael Bolton grabbing the air in a fist and pulling it towards himself while singing "I'm not as bad as Hitler..." as a power ballad. I wrote back to David and told him that he might just be a genius.

It turned out that my manager had actually thought that I had asked him whether he'd be around for the next hour, and he had said yes to mean that yes he would, rather than yes, I needed to be - which was how I understood it. So I missed the stress workshop for nothing! Apparently though, there wasn't much that we wouldn't have known before - sleep well, eat well, don't worry about stuff, take deep breaths, etc. Just like Sharon from Slimming World, the stress guy almost certainly had things to sell and a well-considered pitch. It would have been interesting though.

I mentioned it to Winners on Skype. He told me it was OK because he didn't think I needed a stress workshop. See, the chilled-out coolness is already having an effect! I didn't tell him that the stress monitor card on my desk was glowing green like the Hulk, after I pressed it.

I went home, helped my Mum clear up the pie she'd been throwing around the kitchen and then dashed out to the choir team meeting at The Volunteer. Half a pepsi, a pint of Blackthorn cider and a lemonade stood on beer mats in the middle of the varnished table as we chatted about choir.

"So how do you feel it's going?" I asked, in a carefully-rehearsed, casual fashion. Simon and Lindsay both told me in their own ways, that they felt the choir had lost a bit of momentum. I picked up their disappointment and we unpicked it for a while. I'm not too good at turning disappointment around, especially when I feel the same, but I tried to encourage all of us to make the most of what we've got, to make choir a really fun, exceptional experience for the people who are part of it. Sometimes, I thought, you've got to preach to yourself. Then, I heard myself say, everything else will change with it.

I wonder what happened to Michael Bolton. I remember him singing soulfully, looking out to sea, belting out his gravelly baritone ballads to the waves while they raced towards him. He'd pour out his manufactured broken-heart while the strings soared and the drums kicked in. He always seemed rather lonely, standing there on the beach with his long tied-back hair. I hope he got a bit less croony.

Is that how people see me? I ask myself. I don't always feel like that these days, but it wouldn't be a surprise if that were the perception of me out there. I hope not though. There's only so long you can sing to the waves in your 80s jeans and your sports jacket, dreaming about the love you lost or never had, or never will have... eventually you become a bit too melancholy to be any fun to be around, and that only makes it worse. You have to make the most of what you have got, and be thankful for it - making your life really fun and an exceptional experience for the people who are part of it. Don't let's be Michael Bolton.

That's what I'm telling myself.

LIKE A GLOVE

It's raining today. I opened the front door to a torrent of car-splashing, puddle-making rainwater, crashing out of the grey sky, gurgling in the gutter and dribbling from the drainpipe.

"Back for lunch later, are you?" asked my Dad, looming behind me.

"Yes, I suppose so," I sighed.

"Take a brolly," he added, as though it hadn't also just occurred to me.

I swung the umbrella from the coat peg and pointed it out into the rain, then stepped out into Monday morning.

-

"Do you need me for the next hour?" I asked my manager.

"Yes," he replied, matter-of-factly. He didn't even pause-then-laugh, though I was half-expecting it.

No stress-workshop for me then. It's been conveniently de-prioritised by... well, stress.

I gripped my HR-provided stress monitor card until I could see the colour changing under my firmly-pressed thumb. Green. The card says that's 'Normal' but I'm not sure how it's calibrated. 

-

Thankfully, for those stressful/rainy days, there are always off-the-wall colleagues who are writing Christmas carols for the Christmas do... eight months in advance.

"Can you play any Michael Bolton tunes?" asked David, eyes twinkling in the kitchen. I said I thought I probably could and he said 'cool, cool' and backed out of the door with a trayful of mugs.

A little later, he sent me an email with some lyrics which made the day (somehow) a whole lot better, for oh so many reasons. I now present them word for word:

Verse 1
There was once I time when I committed a crime and Jesus led me straight
I was not as bad as Hitler but nowhere near a saint

Chorus
Save me Jesus, bring me your joy and love,
Save me Jesus, I pray for thee up above
Save me Jesus, bring me your joy and love,
Save me Jesus, let my hand fit yours like a glove

Amen to that.

LEARNING CURVES AND BANANAS

You know those timelapse videos, where someone's in the middle of a crowd of fast-moving people? Ah you do; it's usually a news reporter, surrounded by blur of sped-up commuters or shoppers or builders or something... Well, that's how I felt today.

If you've been following my ongoing quest for a more chilled-out life, you'll appreciate the picture. There were people carrying lights, bolting in rigs and taping black card to the windows. There were cables trailing and cameras on tripods; there were long swathes of black cloth, draped across the floor with rolls of tape, a set of stepladders, a couple of laptops on tables and a lot of coffee cups. And there was me, sitting in the middle, eating a banana and contemplating it all as it sped past me.

Delegation is a beautiful and dangerous thing. It's beautiful because it means you don't have to worry about the detail, the tiny stresses that get under your skin or the niggling differences of opinion that appear like hairline fractures. It's also dangerous because you have to let some stuff go and trust someone else to worry about those same details. For control-types, perfectionists and creatives, it is really tough. For visionaries, logical leaders and disciplined managers, it ought to be a bit easier - but it's not always. For me today, project managing the event, it was just really funny.

It was a great banana - easy to peel, sweet, just ripe enough to provide some resistance against the teeth without squishing into a pulp, and it was unblemished. I really enjoyed that banana.

It's not that there weren't questions I needed to answer - there were! It's not that I didn't have to make a few tricky decisions or discuss things tactfully: I did all of that. It was just that it was somehow, way cooler than I expected - and pretty much, all I had to do was plug in my keyboard and play it while everything else sort of resolved itself around me in this hyper-excited motion blur. I loved it.

That's not to say that the filmed worship night didn't go without a hitch - there are so many things we've added to the learning curve for next time - not to mention me playing the wrong notes or any of the other dozen mistakes we all made with our instruments. However, what we have done, is we've made a start, and I think that's really important. Plus, I think I've learned some things about delegation...

For example, vision is better than instruction. What I mean is that if someone catches the vision for a thing, rather than just a list of things they have to do, they'll probably do it a lot better, bringing their own passion, flair and energy to the task. It's empowering.

Second, you sometimes have to let go to let it grow. I have ideas about how things should be done, and maybe even a bit of wisdom, but beyond that, it's not a monopoly on good ideas - I'm not the good-ideas-guru. In fact, if I'm thinking about everything all at once, I'm probably going to have mediocre ideas at best: if there's someone who's focused on that area, they're much more likely to come up with something better. You have to let go of something fully to let it grow into something else, sometimes. Anyone who's worked for a micro-manager will know what it feels like not to be trusted to do this.

Third, I guess, is don't take it all too seriously. I found myself curiously focused and yet... well, not really caring too much about what happened. I know that sounds a bit weird, but it is always important to maintain a bit of perspective: I have a great family; I'm in good health; my friends are awesome people; my piano sounds great; it's beautiful when the sun shines.

Oh, and that was a really good banana, right there in the middle of the timelapsed crowd of super-delegated activity.

I really enjoyed that banana.

NANDO'S WITH CARLOS THE LIBERATOR

I had lunch with Carlos the Liberator today. Nando's it was. He outlined his theories about democracy in the 4th Century BC and how the King James version of the Bible (1611) introduced the idea of hierarchy to the church. I asked him whether he remembered the time we went camping and he had to sleep on some twigs.

Nando's has changed a lot since I was last there. There's no upstairs any more. What's more, I think someone somewhere decided they needed to up their game when it comes to customer service. Oh, they still have the old system - you still have to leave your coats draped over the back of the chair while you queue up to order. However, rather than spotty teenagers grumpily punching in the numbers, this time a very friendly lady took our orders patiently and professionally.

The food arrived quickly, in the arms of a fast-moving young man. Then, slinking out of nowhere like a Nando's Ninja, the manager (dressed in black) appeared by our table for the check-back.

"How is the food guys?" he asked, politely. He had moustachios.

"Yeah good," said we, for such is the expected reply in this situation, when conducted between Englishmen. He disappeared just as stealthily, apparently satisfied.

The ambience has changed too. There was a time when it was as noisy as a swimming pool. They used to pipe in generic Portuguese (sounding) music to samba across the taste of the piri-piri chicken and spicy rice. Not today - the background music was much gentler and subtler, and the echoing chatter and clink was gone. Admittedly, I reflected, it could easily be because we were there on a Thursday lunch time and not a Friday night, just before the cinema next door are showing Pitch Perfect 2... or whatever.

It was great to see Carlos. For me, he typifies the reason why flumpbook has distorted so many relationships. By email, he comes across as argumentative, contrary and sometimes pinpointedly controversial. Face-to-face though, there's a humility to the guy that I really warm to - and it's nice to see that in a person's eyes, rather than to have to decipher it from between the lines in a flakebook comment or an email. It occurred to me that if he could capture that warmth somehow, balance it with the razor-sharp insight that he has and spin it out into the written word, he'd be a very good author indeed.

There was someone on the door, wishing us well as we left. That's a nice touch, especially as the Nando's system requires you to pay before you eat. Carlos and I made sure we wished her a good day too and she smiled at us both, deliberately making eye-contact and holding the door for us while I popped open my umbrella.

"Shame you live so far away," I said, "We should do this more often."

Carlos agreed.

THE EXTRA FIVE MINUTES

I think I might have found another key to living a chilled-out, laid-back, confident life: take your time getting to places.

You know that guy, zipping between the traffic, lane-swerving like a loon? That is not doing him any good. He's sitting on the edge of his seat, heart pumping, the adrenaline pouring through him as he gambles with his life and everyone else's. His eyes dart quickly, his hands swing around the wheel and his concentration and reflexes are working at their edge of their ability. Dude. Slow down.

I left work a little early today and went and sat by the lake for a few minutes. I knew there wouldn't be anyone else there, just the swans, the ducks and the geese. What a treat. I watched the fountain for a while and silently traced the ripples as they sped across the water. Then I stretched out, all my limbs clicking as the muscles tensed and relaxed. It was five minutes but it was beautiful.

Thankfully, the geese left me alone. The swans too, were busy building a nest. I was sitting on a bench, smiling to myself. How could anyone say they don't have time for this? It's five minutes but it's a really valuable five minutes.

A significant stress point for me is lateness. I can't bear running late, even if I know that everybody else is. Yet often I hear myself apologising, "Oh I'm really sorry I'm late by the way," and then loathing the fact that I've done it again and had to say those words... again. It's normally fine, they say, because people are nice... except it isn't. Not with me, anyway.

It's that moment at the lights, drumming the wheel and cranking my neck, staring at the red, willing it to change. Stress.

"Come on, come on, come on, COME ON!" I mutter, using every bit of willpower I can summon to change them to green. Green, foot down, tyres squeal round the corner, brake to avoid smashing into the car in front...

I hate being late. It's stressful. So, to counteract it, I think it's time to build in a little margin - let's go the extra five minutes. It's a fifteen minute journey to church. No it isn't - it's twenty now. It takes half an hour to walk to Sainsbury's. Nope. Thirty five minutes.

I think it's well worth that extra time, even if it means you get to hear the trees whispering to each other, or you see a tiny family of mice scuttling across the pavement. Perhaps you're lucky enough to hear the weir rushing and pouring, and there's just a moment to stop and take a photograph or watch the willow trees swaying on the riverbank. My own journeys aren't quite so picturesque, but I do walk down a hugely interesting high street, alongside cars full of grumpy commuters and over into the green and luscious business park where swans and geese are having their own fun.

I swung my rucksack over my back and headed on home. The sun blinked through the trees and a chilly breeze rippled across the lake. Yep, the extra five minutes is going to make life just that little bit more awesome.

Oh and if I'm late for stuff, and I say something like: "Terribly sorry I'm late old bean," then please ask me why, and where I've been. It'll really help me.

STRESS MONITOR

I happily swung open the door and made my way to my desk. As I slipped off my jacket and set down my umbrella (and the apple I'd been throwing about) I noticed a small plastic card just in front of my keyboard. I turned it over.

Stress Monitor

Oh brilliant. Someone thinks I'm stressed. Here's me, doing my best to float through work on a cloud of laid-back self-confidence, ice-cool and calmly collected, and someone somewhere thinks I might be stressed.

I quickly realised that we'd all got one of these stress monitor cards. This is the latest HR brainwave. They're holding a 'stress workshop' and I guess they want to make sure the right people (the stressed-out people) are there. It's a better idea than the positive thought of the week.

So, the idea is that you hold the card between your thumb and forefinger, and it uses... wizardry... to tell you that you're either dangerously explosive or you've achieved Nirvana or something. Blue is calm, green is normal, red is 'tense' and black is H-bomb.

I held it. Fifteen seconds or so. It turned a bright shade of blue, which I guess means that I'm not going to turn into the Hulk today. That's a relief.

CEYLON

I opened a new box of Twinings Ceylon. The inside of the lid said, "Welcome to the lush plantations of Sri Lanka."

Thanks very much, tea bags. I hope that the lush plantations of Sri Lanka are a bit less like the inside of a box of tea bags though. Also, a bit less like where I actually am - which is an office, full of rattling keyboards, squeaky chairs and chattering software engineers. Far from the sun rising majestically over the rolling hills, we're illuminated by plastic neon lamps buried into the ceiling.

I checked the side of the box for more information.

"Once upon a time," it said in a curly script-like font, "Sri Lanka was the land of coffee, before disease wiped it out in the 1800s."

It's still there though isn't it, Sri Lanka? I mean disease hasn't scrubbed it from the map - there are still green mountains and vast fields and jungle and mists and Tamil fighters slinking through the undergrowth... as far as I know.

I'm being a pedant, a smug old so-and-so, to whom the box might reply dismissively, "Oh you know what I mean,"

And to be fair, I do, of course.

The other side of the box tells me that the tea is 'crisp and fresh tasting' and is 'perfect for days when you want to savour every note in your tea'.

Ah, so, we're closer to the world that my box of tea bags is imagining I inhabit! Not the Kandy mountains or the tea plantations of Sri Lanka! No, in the world of my tea bags, I need to relax at the end of a long day, probably into a comfortable chair with mood lighting, where I should sniff the raincloud of tea that pirouettes from my cup as I sense the misty aroma of Ceylon lulling me to sleep, to dream, to slip into the lush greenery of my imagination, where barefoot tea pluckers laugh amongst themselves between the 'rows of glistening tea plants'...

Don't go to sleep while holding a hot cup of tea. You will be dragged back from Sri Lanka very quickly.

I pause, holding the box and looking round the office. "I tell you what though, box of tea bags," I say quietly. "I know where I'd rather be."

THREE LESSONS TO UNLEARN

Big test of the laid-back self-confidence today: the self-imploding family unit. To avoid getting in the middle of the proxy war with tea and jaffa cakes, I leapt at the chance of escaping to play draughts  with my nephew. It turned out to be eventful.

If you remember, he's not a good loser - or in fact, even a good understander of the game. I tried to help him think about his moves but all he wanted to do was cheat so that he could win.

"No, you can't move backwards," I heard myself say, several times. "No, one space at a time, diagonally. No, you can't jump that one, no, diagonally. Think, don't cheat. Look at the board..."

It was exhausting. In the inevitable end, he broke down into a screaming fury, tears rolling down his face because he didn't want to move (he could see I would take his pieces) but couldn't understand that that meant he lost. He was absolutely out of control, throwing arms and legs around and totally refusing to listen, wailing the same thing over and over again about how I had cheated by giving him a hint. He had lost and he could not handle it. It was, once again, a microcosm of the human condition.

I'm not sure I like the look of it. The first worrying lesson he's learned somewhere is that resignation is better than perseverance. Who has taught him that awful lesson? Wanting to win is commendable, but if it's combined with the idea that you can just throw in the towel when it looks like you're losing... that's awful. If he'd stuck with it, he might well have won. Instead, he gave up - he just gave up. And that, I think, is actually worse, much worse than losing.

The second lesson he's picked up is that the rules bend and break around him, so long as he gets to win the game. I hope and pray that this can somehow be channelled into some entrepreneurial diligence someday, but without perseverance, it's utterly useless. How do you know whether someone is a winner? They win. And how do they win? They start off by losing - this is success 101 isn't it? Every winner has to be a great loser. And if there's one thing losers understand it's how the rules work.

The worst lesson of all though is the one which has taught him that he is the centre of the universe. We're all like this - we all do everything we can to justify ourselves and shovel the blame out of our own self-dug trenches. It's pride - a natural, human, selfish pride. 

At the end of it, with the distress of him screaming and not listening, I found myself heartbroken at the thought of it - the thought that I'm like this too. I can't stand being wrong. I detest being wrong and embarrassed and I flush hot with anger if I'm wrong, embarrassed and ignored. And I think we're all like it.

The older I get, the more I realise that loving other people, championing them and helping them as much as you would yourself, is one of the greatest keys to happiness you will ever find. It beats me how people don't get this, how it results in an astounded "What's he ever done for me?" or a "Why should I?" as though those were even the right questions to ask. I wish the rest of my family could figure that out, especially as they all know that it's exactly what Jesus teaches.

My nephew is seven, which I think is the age to at least start understanding all this. At the end of the game, while I was dolefully packing away the draughts, I wondered whether I should have explained the rules again, more clearly at the start. Maybe next time. In a way that he cannot possibly understand at the moment, I am desperate for him to beat me at draughts. I hope that day is soon.

My other nephew came through and very innocently stared up at me. He's a little younger.

"Uncle Matthew?" he said, holding his hands behind his back. "Do you know the person who invented the door knocker?"

"Um, no, I don't," I said, scratching my head. "Do you?"

"No," he said, perfectly, "But he deserves a nobel prize."

I roared with laughter, which it seemed, was exactly what I needed.

FUN DAY CONFIDENCE

"The trick is, to carry that chilled-out pace into this one," said someone, beaming at me. I had just told them about the way time seems slower in Canada.

That pace in this time zone, I thought. Quite right. Easier said than done though.

Nonetheless, at least for today, I thought I might approach the annual Fun Day with a sense of laid-back self-confidence. I read somewhere that if you pretend to be something for long enough, eventually you become it - and this was a perfect opportunity to practice.

We've been running the Calcot Fun Day since 2010. I'm not involved in the nitty-gritty anymore but I do still get to be part of it - which is great, especially on days like today when 2,000 people turn up and the sun shines. Last year, we huddled indoors while the wind and the rain blew tents across the field.

Laid-back self-confidence, I thought to myself. I can do that. So I did. I didn't get there as early as some people did, and with remarkable ease, I slipped away at the end. Some years I'd have stayed until the last vehicle tugged its trailer off the site and the final litter-pickers turned in their black bin bags. Not today. I said goodbye and I made a cool exit across the field and home.

How am I going to keep this up? There was a moment today when someone told me that something I'd explicitly expected to happen, hadn't actually happened, while I was away. In fact, it hadn't happened twice. My heart sank with disappointment - especially at the reason (which I can't go in to). In an instant, I recognised that my brain could leap from disappointment to worry to reaction to plan, if I let it, and that I didn't need any of that kind of leaping. Leaping is stressful and it speeds up the clock, turning chilled-out laid-back self-confidence into hair-pulling stress-bucket. That is not the kind of person I want to be around - and therefore, it is not the kind of person I want to be.

I think you can either be changed by your atmosphere, or you can help to change it. As a result, I should always be asking what it is that I'm bringing to the table.

Anyway, the Fun Day was a huge success. I don't know of anything that went wrong - the sun was brilliant, the light breeze was refreshing, the stall holders all seemed happy and there were hundreds of smiling people milling across the green grass under the blue sky.

I sat for a while in the marquee, chilling out and thinking about all the hours that the team put into making this thing happen. It's a real mistake to think it all depends on us and us alone. More than that though, that kind of selfish thinking leads to enormous stresses and strains as we grab the wheel and try steering big things with our super-strength. That's a real key, because I'm very much like that - I have been very much like that - and it has led to this awful speeding up of the clock. As my manager is fond of saying, It takes teamwork to make a dream work.

Laid-back self-confidence, I said to myself. Laid-back self-confidence. I took a swig from my water bottle and laughed, no longer caring whether anyone heard me.

THE WORLD BENEATH THE WEATHER

I walked to work this morning. The sky was bright and overcast, and everything seemed very quiet. There weren't many cars on the road, nor people on the high street. I wondered whether it had always been like this, whether I was looking at everything with Toronto-goggles, or whether there was a sort of post-election uncertainty in the air.

That would make sense. A lot of people don't know what to make of the poll-astounding result - at least not yet; there is uncertainty and trepidation coursing through social media this morning, at the prospect of a majority Conservative government.

That is though, what we have collectively voted for, and while we might not like democracy's output individually, we have to admit that its mechanism is a much better idea than the alternative.

Unless you'd feel right at home in North Korea.

It might have been my own uncertainty, projected onto my environment, of course. That can happen. We tend to see the world through our unique lenses, shaping and understanding what we see, through the worldview we've already adopted.

The night flight, by the way, was pretty grim. It wasn't exactly the sleep of Endymion - there were no moonbeams lulling me to slumber. Rather, there was the noise of a jet engine, a narrow seat that wouldn't recline and the warm, stuffy discomfort of two hundred other people breathing and exhaling around me. I dozed for a while, then got bounced around by turbulence.

I did see the dawn, creeping over the horizon. It's quite something - it starts as a faint glow in the distance, like streetlamps of a distant city. Then, gradually it spreads into a curved blue-green ribbon, gently illuminating the clouds below. Eventually, the ribbon grows and stretches, a crack of sunlight appears and the brilliant blue fills the sky as the sun rises majestically above the ocean below.

There is no uncertainty about the dawn. It just happens, up there, above the clouds, every day, all the time. In fact, if anything it's under the clouds, in the world beneath the weather, where things are less predictable. I reckon (putting the weather aside for a moment) that that's mostly down to us - our choices, our relationships, our buildings and paperwork, our lifestyle decisions, our finances, our emails, our politics, our technology, and (picking the weather up again) our climate.

I flicked through my emails. There's a two minute silence later - in honour of 70 years since VE Day, the magnificent day on which the war in Europe came to an end. I was suddenly ashamed to have forgotten, or somehow not realised.

For six years, the world was in a state of unprecedented peril at the hands of Nazism and the war we undertook to stop it. It was democracy in the end, which won - the same kind of democracy which gives each of us the right to vote, which makes our leaders (whoever they are) accountable to the people they lead, and which gives us, ordinary people, a voice in uncertain times. I think that you should think that idea to be quite marvellous.

Unless you'd rather live in North Korea, of course.

THE NIGHT FLIGHT

Air travel's complicated isn't it? Well, yes, but it remains the quickest way to travel home. I'm in the departure lounge again, this time in Toronto, and this time, with a glass of Pinot Grigio.

It's a night flight. I'm currently watching the sun sink into a golden evening, while gigantic planes taxi to and fro. One of them will carry me and my stuff back to the UK, just in time to vote, and certainly in time for a cup of much-loved Darjeeling. I'm more excited about one of those things than the other, and, in truth, even more excited about seeing my friends and my family.

I wonder whether I will wake up tomorrow missing the sound of the streetcar rumbling along Queen Street. Then there's that rush of cold fresh air as I open the roof-light window...

Well actually I'll still be on the plane tomorrow morning and I doubt anyone would be thrilled at the idea of opening the window.

I'm really hoping that air travel is not that complicated. Get on, sleep the sleep of Endymion, and then get off again at the other end. That's the plan.

Also, as much as I adore tiny babies, I'm extremely grateful that (with another hour before boarding) I can't see one here in the departure lounge. I guess there's time for that.

That, and another glass of the Pinot, I suppose.

BACK TO NORMAL

... and then, weirdly, out of the blue and quite suddenly, it is my last day here in Toronto. Tomorrow night I fly home. I'd better get rehearsing the responses to those stock questions when they come. Here we go:

1. How was it?

Awesome.

2. How was the food?

Awesome.

3. Did you go up the CN Tower?

For sure.

4. And how was that?

Awesome.

5. What about Niagara?

Yup.

6. And what was that like?

Awesome.

7. How was the weather?

Awesome.

8. Did you try pancakes with maple syrup?

Oh yes.

9. How was that?

Awesome.

10. And how does it feel to be back?

Oh.

I'm not playing fairly, I do apologise. I promise I will go into more detail, and I genuinely will be pleased to be back. However, it's a tough job to sum it all up. Truth is, I've had a great time - despite getting sunburned, and, as you're about to see, getting my spectacles broken. It's been a really great balance of activity and relaxation - time to read, time to write, time to eat and time to push through all my pain barriers at the gym. That has been the best mixture of all actually, in the land of curious mixtures.

"Whose glasses are these?" asked Christa, the coach at the gym this morning. They were mine and they'd been stood on and deformed to the point where the lenses had popped out of the frame and the wire that held them there had snapped.

I think I've mentioned before about the weird connection spectacle-wearers have with their eyewear. You might not believe it, but they are actually part of our faces - which means that when they get broken, it's a deeply personal thing. My heart sank - not here, not like this, not in a foreign country. I was really upset.

Thankfully, Emmie knows an opthalmology wizard, who once fixed her sunglasses. He worked some magic, pulled some mysterious thread through the frame and in a matter of minutes (of him telling me about his fig tree in Sicily) I was back to normal.

Back to normal. That's an unusual idea, isn't it? There isn't really a normal, there's just different. This time zone, where days feel like weeks and the sun stretches the memory into long and beautiful walks, has been very kind to me. It feels as though I've been in Toronto for a month, which is a super feeling - especially as this city feels so chilled and calm and cool.

It isn't home though. And that's what I think I mean by normal. I'm talking about home, the place where your heart is, where your family is and where you know you need to be at the end of the day. That is what I'm going back to. I'm kind of sad to be leaving this great land of beauty and possibility behind, but I'm also very thankful for the memories it's given me - which will last as long as I do. And for those, Canada, I'm really thankful.

 

UP, DOWN, AND BEING SIX

If I'm not careful, recounting today's events will make me sound like a six year old. See, the truth is I went up a tall tower, then saw some fishes (the shark was my favourite) then I met a real fireman who let me sit in the real fire engine and he put the sirens on and let me dress up in his uniform and everything...

Now, all of that did happen - and it is true that at various points today, I was about as excited as a six year old, but I think that's OK when you're on holiday from the real world...

First up, and quite literally, was the CN Tower. I've been fascinated by this structure for a long time. I was telling Emmie and Nick that I used to have a book of Guiness World Records which had a page on the world's tallest buildings - spiking up somewhere between the Eiffel Tower and the World Trade Center, was this awesome structure. I learned lots today. The CN Tower was completed in 1976 and for 34 years it was the world's tallest free standing structure. It's 553 metres high and is currently the tallest lightning rod in the Western Hemisphere. It was built as a radio communications tower, but soon became a tourist attraction and now welcomes over 2 million visitors every year.

Oh and it's amazing being up there. I held on to my hat as we walked around the observation gallery. The wind swept in from all directions. The view is spectacular, above the skyscrapers, the tiny planes landing at Toronto Island Airport, the expressway and the glinting cars below. It reminded me of how much we as a species, can achieve.

"How tall was the Tower of Babel, Matt?" asked Nick, rather poignantly dragging me out of my reverie. I had a wry smile at that.

"Nobody knows," I said.

I got out of the lift at the bottom with a kind of dizzy, disconnected feeling. I wandered through the gift shop, unable to hear anything until my ears popped. That's the disconcerting trouble with descending 553 metres at 20 kilometres per hour.

Next up (and kind of down and through) was the Aquarium. We did indeed see some 'fishes'. They gawped at us from the other side of the glass, unblinking and other-worldly. There were tiny fish, colourful fish, gigantic sea turtles, weird pulsating jellyfish, eels, blowfish, rays, fish from the Pacific, fish from the Arctic, clownfish, piranha, swordfish and sand tiger sharks.

I've always thought of the ocean as a kind of alien world: a dark, mysterious and vast network of corals and waving plants where all kinds of truly weird and wonderful things live - things with teeth and gills and bulging eyes and stalks and swirling fins and tails. The Aquarium didn't disappoint me.

It's right underneath the CN Tower too. In fact, you can look straight up from just outside the Aquarium. Similarly, you can see the roof of the Aquarium from the glass floor, 500m above it, if you're brave enough.

I didn't know what could round off such a fun day - and then I got to really embrace my inner six-year old, by sitting in a fire truck. One of Emmie and Nick's friends here is a firefighter. 

It's huge, inside and out, the Canadian fire truck. Driving this monster at speed must take real skill and strength.

Perhaps that isn't a surprise, given that those two things (along with astonishing bravery) are sort of prerequisites for firefighters. Technical writing doesn't really match up. I doubt it fascinates many six year olds either.

Golly, technical writing. I used to do that, back in the other time zone. I'll be back to it in a few days. I'm not sure I want to think about that just yet. I am still only six after all.

THE SUNSHINE OF ANOTHER TIME ZONE

Now this is a Sunday afternoon. Warm sunshine floods the deck, I snuggle into the papasan chair with my Kindle (more Wodehouse) and on the street corner, the steel pan guy plays happily for the neighbourhood.

Back home, a Sunday afternoon is a bit like a siege. You know that thing when you're cut off from the outside world by invaders? We have to prepare very carefully: make sure there are toys out ready, the kitchen is stacked with treats and that anything you don't want little fingers to play with... is safely out of reach.

Then they arrive, the Nibling hordes - they ring the doorbell, though its function is pure decoration, as the front door clicks open and small voices cry excitedly. In they come, the miniature attackers, clutching fragile-looking Lego structures (which will get lost) or chunky plastic weapons (which unfortunately, will not). The next two hours belong to them.

None of that here - just the melodious tones of the steel pan and the whir of traffic, the chirping of birds and the hiss of a barbecue somewhere. A breeze ripples through the giant willow tree out back and a black squirrel darts up an elm in the avenue. If I'm beseiged by anything, it's just peace today.

That's good because there are lots of unspoken questions at the moment. I was thinking them through last night, trying to work out why I feel certain ways about certain things and what I'm going to do about it - and for now, the only answer I've got is to sit here listening to the world around me. There's a kind of helplessness which is really beautiful - I can't switch my phone on, I can't fix things in the UK, I can't leap into action or stress myself out for a while... I'm three days and seven hours away from that world, and living in the sunshine of another time zone. The only thing I can do, the only thing, is to make the most of it.

I went back to Emmie's church this morning. She's on a training course, so today it was just me rolling up for the practice at 9am. It was all fine - I played guitar (rather standardly) and tried to sing in as Canadian a way as possible. Afterwards, Andrea showed me the difference between a soft A and an East Coast 'A' (which sounded much more like an 'E' to me). I realised that I couldn't say 'Kenada' without it sounding like I was mocking her accent, so I stuck to good old Home Counties English - which is quite natural, I suppose.

"So hey Matt, when are you moving to Toronto?" asked someone, as I left. 

BESIDE ONTARIO

I had a little moment of wonder today. OK, I also walked 35km and got sunburned, which is less wondrous, but despite all that, I did have this short half an hour, watching the lake shimmer and feeling the breeze roll off the water.

I ought to write a poem, I thought to myself, not done one of those in a long while and this seemed perfect. So here it is, straight from the view:

Beside Ontario

To see the sparkled sun fragment

Upon the lake of blue

To sit upon the jagged rocks

Alone is what I do

To hear the water kiss the shore

With rippled melody

To sit beside the singing waves

Alone is where I'll be

To see the hazy line of hills

So long so far away

To think of home much further still

Is where I sit today

To bask in sun beside the lake

Where jewelled waters flow

To think so still and quiet make

Beside Ontario

FIRE HYDRANTS

I'm ready.  I know, I know, it's taken a while, but the time has finally come.

I'm ready to talk about fire hydrants in Canada.

The first thing to say is that over in the UK, we don't have them. Oh sure, they're on every street corner here, but in Blighty, the fire crew are not quite so organised. Our brave firemen have to trundle their hose over to the nearest mains water manhole cover, rip it open, plug in the hosepipe and, oh it's kind of the same isn't it.

Well, even so, we definitely don't have these little doofers wedged into the pavement. I've seen loads while I've been here. They're like little robots, waiting to be used, waiting for the day when there's some kind of disaster and they can spring into action.

Wikipedia tells me that even as long ago as the Great Fire of London, people thought it prudent to drill holes in the ground so that they could access water quickly. It's a shame they didn't also think it prudent to space their wooden houses out a little bit. Ever since, we've been unplugging waterholes to put fires out.

I quite the like reassurance of a fire hydrant. It reminds me that there is always help at hand. And here in Toronto, that help is hard to miss - they're bright yellow.

This one's got a chain across it, presumably so you don't lose the plug when you twist it off. I say you, unless you're a firefighter in the Toronto Fire Service, it's not likely to be you that wrenches the plug off a bright yellow fire hydrant.

This one was in the park, for all those park-based fire emergencies you're always hearing about. Interestingly, it didn't seem to be anywhere near the road, whereas the others were in handy reach of a fire truck.

This fire hydrant wasn't in Toronto. It was in Niagara, where presumably someone decided that red was the colour for these things. Actually, I think the colour coding might mean that you can get quite a lot of water, quite quickly out of this little billy.

This one's in Niagara too. It's red all over. Actually, there were loads of fire hydrants in Niagara, come to  think of it. I guess they must be short of water.

As I say, I think it's great. "Hey everybody!" says the fire hydrant, "Any fires? I'm here, y'know just right here like a gigantic faucet, ready when ya need me. Any fires? Anyone?"

I'm quite happy that they're there. I just hope I don't ever need one.