BICYCLE BELL

So I’m still walking everywhere (when not on the Interdimensional Omnibus, of course). Thankfully the weather is nice enough, and there’s plenty of room to think. I do have a question though, that I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of:

What happened to the bike bell?

Yeah I’m serious. Back in the old days, you could be ambling along a lane, or hopscotching the paving stones, when suddenly from behind, you’d hear the cheery tring of a bike bell. Not loud or piercing, just a short burst of mechanical bell, peeling out from a politer age.

Not so these days. The bike bell is gone. Today’s pedestrian has to train their hearing toward the whirring of wheels behind them, and then move swiftly out of the way for hooded youths and helmeted commuters on fancy cycles.

Yesterday, one young man overtook me doing a wheelie. I’m not quite sure what he was trying to prove. But then, I’ve never really been sure what wheelies mean.

I’m not even sure the postman uses a bike bell any more. I mean, he should, obviously, just like he should whistle from door to door. That too seems a dying art.

But the bike bell at least does have a use! Long before the midwife, or vicar, or schoolmistress arrives at your heels, you can anticipate and move left! It’s harder to do when they’re closer, but a bell would ring out through the leafy birdsong and let you know that you were about to be overtaken.

I think it’s sad the bicycle bell is disappearing. Just like a cheerful hullo or a summery whistle, that sound of happy old England seems to be behind us. Which is ironic, but also a shame.

VICTORIA SPONGE

Well glory be. I got back from the park, opened a kitchen cupboard, and a Co-Op Victoria Sponge fell out.

Now I’m a great believer in signs and wonders. So when a delicious cake I didn’t remember buying fell from a shelf I didn’t remember storing it upon, at a moment I was not expecting, I was moved to the deepest kind of prayer, grabbed the sacrificial cake knife, and hurriedly opened the box.

There it was. It slid perfectly out in its cellophane wrapper, round and deep like any child would know and draw it - cylindrical, wider than tall, sandwiched together with cream and jam and covered in a light dusting of icing sugar like fallen snow on its slightly domed surface.

The cardboard of the box had preserved it in the fall, and the miracle sponge itself felt still light and bouncy. I ripped off the wrapper and let the sweet aroma fill the room. Cake, Victoria sponge, this most deliciously British of confectionary marvels! The sugar was tastable in the air.

I took the knife and embedded it into the snow-layer. It sank in with a delicate bounce, squeezing through layers of heavenly sponge. Red jam oozed from the centre, lovely buttery cream squelched around the knife blade.

It’s always amused me how at weddings, it’s this bit that people photograph - the cutting of the cake. I’ve never fully understood why married couples have photos of themselves holding a knife. I’d be perfectly okay with a nice normal dessert after a wedding luncheon, but I have no need to see the bride and groom wrestling with a tin opener and a can of peaches.

Anyway, there was no photography tonight, and no applause as I sliced into my miracle cake from the heavenly realms. There was just a great licking of the lips and widening of the eyes. A slice of this would go perfectly with a good old cup of tea, I thought to myself.

One of the consequences of living on your own is that you’ve only really got the walls to bounce ideas from. And the walls make dreadful advisors; this morning I went out with a brown shirt under a purple jumper. They may have ears, but those walls definitely don’t have a mouth to tell you that colours don’t match, that it’s bin day, or that you have to turn the grill off while you’re running the bath.

The walls, the mirror, the bathtub, and indeed all my kitchen appliances, failed today to stop me eating the whole sponge cake.

I put the knife down. The cellophane wrapper was a blanket of crumbs. I had scoffed the lot.

So my question is, is that what you’re supposed to do with miracles? Were there drunkards at the wedding in Cana with ties wrapped around their heads singing along to Grease Megamix? Did anyone at the Feeding of the Five Thousand get indigestion from one too many tuna sandwiches?

So why is it okay for me to devour a whole Victoria sponge in under 90 seconds? I felt like a right glutton standing there in front of no-cake. I washed up the knife and scrunched the wrapper into the bin. Cake from heaven eh. Lovely, sugary, jammy, creamy, delicious, impeccable goodness from the secret place of mystery that all miracles come from. And also the top shelf of my cupboard. Delectable.

It took me an inordinate amount of time to check the box for a use-by-date...

PERCOLATOR

It’s so nice to be able to get back to the park, now the days are getting a bit longer. A quick dinner, a bit of Radio 4 for Just a Minute, and then I’m shoes-on-ready for the sunset and the buttercups.

I really need these moments. The world out there is rapid, quick-fire, snarling, and dangerous. But in the park, the grass grows slowly, the sun sinks silently, and the birds fill the trees like choristers at evensong. This is how I roll.

I told a WhatsApp group I’m in, that I’m a percolator.

“I am a percolator”...

I typed, adding a carriage return before explaining in the next paragraph. I thought it would be funny.

I’m not sure it was. I was trying to explain that I think slowly, process things, chew them over, ruminate, deliberate, percolate, like all the best coffee machines. Long after meetings have finished, I’m still logically rolling over the details.

I agree, it’s way too slow for some people. And yes, those people are exactly the people who usually run stuff at speed, and are way too busy to ... percolate, or come out here with me to talk it over with the birds and the trees. I doubt I’ll ever be able to run stuff at speed, and I take my hat off to those high-flying sprint-thinkers.

Anyway. The park is lovely. I’ve listened to the Oxford train, invisibly rattling behind the tree line. I’ve watched the thick rays of sunlight burst through the clouds. I’ve heard at least eleven different bird calls and wished I could recognise... any of them. I’ve seen lights flicker on across the valley and shadows fall, and I’ve felt the air grow cold with the stars. There’s a solemn beauty about moments like these that I hope will percolate through to tomorrow. I think I’ll need it.

CONTRAILS

It's so weird how there are moments, just moments, when you can really see the vapour trails of pride in your attitude. Most of the time you can't see them at all, and then, suddenly, there they are, streaming behind you, crystallising into the air.

I'm talking about the destructive kind of pride of course - the stuff that gets right under your skin and tries to convince you that no-one else matters.

Well, today, I see its contrails. Someone struggles with a document table of contents but doesn't ask for help. My chest tightens; I could fix that! Someone else says something musical and I want to chip in and look good. Then a Big Cheese starts changing the slides in someone's presentation without them knowing, just before they present, and I hear myself whispering that I'd "refuse to present at all" if it were me! I reply to a group email; the sender responds to others in the chain, before and after me, but not me. Gritted teeth, tight chest, the engine rumbles on the wing.

These are all vapour trails: they're byproducts of being talented, opinionated, knowledgeable, and the self-pilot of your flight on Ego Airways.

So what do you do? How do you just let these things go? I don't enjoy feeling like this - to be honest, I don't even feel great about writing about it because in an ironic way, coming online and telling the world that I want to be 'more humble' comes across as exactly the opposite of humility. I could so easily be double-bluffing. But of course, once you go down that road, you end up in an infinite loop and there's nothing I can say at all.

What then? Bottle it up? Take it home? Keep quiet? Switch off the engines and let the plane tumble quietly out of the sky?

Nope. I think part of the answer is just getting better at the silent art of empathy, at listening, and continually searching for the best in other people.

Clearly I'm not the only person who can fix a table of contents. And just because some developers can (however surprising that might actually be) it doesn't undermine my job at all.

Similarly, knowing about music does not define my identity either! Who cares? I don't want to rob someone of the opportunity of finding out a thing, by blurting it out like an armchair expert. If the journey's been great for you, don't arrive at the destination and immediately build a transporter beam. Right? The view might not have been designed just for you.

The slide-changing manager is harder to cope with because that would genuinely fluster me. But I tell you what, after the first time, I'd work really hard to craft better slides for the next one. After all, it was sitting in a tutor's office with my work scribbled-over in red pen that got me writing in the first place! I'm not Hemingway, but I am thankful to Dr James and Dr Neely all those years ago.

And who gives a hoot about emails? We disrespect each other accidentally all the time online; it seems to me that letting go of 'being offended' from behind a glowing screen and a rattling keyboard, is the real skill, fit for the age. It's about time I learned how to do it.

Contrails become clouds eventually. They sort of merge into the sky in fluffy lines until you can't tell that a plane was ever there at all. Maybe that's a good lesson - seeing your vapour trails as part of the skyscape, made much more beautiful as the natural course of things takes over. And of course, at the end of the day, we all have to land and let the sunset paint the clouds regardless.

THE SEVENTH DESK MOVE

So while I was away from work, I moved desks, apparently.

I have mixed feelings: I'm extremely glad I missed the chaos-morning of the entire office swapping desks at once. (That is how we do it for some reason.) However, I'm also cramped into a smaller space, and I'm not yet certain I've got my monitors positioned to avoid eye-strain or neck-crick. Welcome to Desk Eight.

There's another consequence too. I'm suddenly in a world where I have to restrain myself from saying anything. It's good practice - I don't want to be commenting on possible reasons why Tim's cats might be grumpy, or what you're supposed do with a remote contractor in Greece. I don't want to overhear process conversations and I don't particularly enjoy knowing the answers to questions that are launched into the ether while also realising that answering them drags me into conversations I'd rather avoid.

As a result, I'm sitting here listening, and practising the art of self-control.

"Where can I find the list of languages we support in OCR?" asks someone. Ether, question, float.

(I know where that list is because I wrote it.) But I am not interrupting; I don't wish to be an interloper until I'm invited into these chats. And anyway, seven times out of ten I've misunderstood it anyway. Never interrupt a conversation unless you understand it.

"Er, maybe we can pull it from the config file?" suggests someone else. Good idea.

Meanwhile, Winners (all the way from Zimbabwe) suggested via WhatsApp that I bring in some bubbles to lighten the mood. I love that idea - the phantom bubble blower. The world would be much better if the air was filled with bubbles instead of questions. Though it'd be obvious it was me in the end, wouldn't it.

"I wonder what the help says," wonders the person opposite me, knowing I'm both in earshot and responsible for writing 'the help', "It's bound to be full of really useful, helpful information." Pointed.

I think I might put my headphones on.

INTERDIMENSIONAL

Normallo life returns then, and with it, the good old Number 15 Interdimensional Omnibus.

I’m risking it because it turned up at exactly the right time, despite most of the roads being blocked with traffic. And if it manages to wormhole its way through the clustered vehicles ahead then it will have been a good choice.

Better than walking anyway.

I’m back on the bus because my car’s not working. A week or so ago, my brakes turned solid in the middle of Salisbury. It had a remarkable effect on my immediate prayer life. As it turns out it’s the vacuum pump that’s broken, meaning my brakes no longer have any hydraulic assistance. It’s basically like the 1980s. Not that I was driving anything then, of course. I’m just noting that it would be easier to stop a tank than it would my car in its present condition.

I won’t bore you with the details of how I got home from Salisbury. Let’s just say it involved maths, and fervent intercession.

Anyway, I’m back on the bus this week. I like the time it affords me - a sort of concentration break between the rigours of work, and the stresses of life. It’s pretty empty too, which is always a bonus. In that regard the 15, my quantum tunnelling transportation device, is truly an interdimensional wonder.

SERENDIPITY

Call it serendipity if you like. A well-designed thing can look like good fortune if all the pieces are in the right place.

The sunlight beads across the hills in a thin corona, aeroplanes glint in the early morning air. Before long, the Earth slowly turns like a great, tilting table and the pale blue sky is filled with sun.

The wood pigeons, the starlings, the crows, the sparrows burst into song as long fingers of warm light caress the trees. Call it serendipity if you like, but everything seems to be in the right place at the right time.

I’m in the park on Easter Sunday morning, contemplating. It feels like a new kind of day, this, a new season. I pulled myself awake and hurried out here, ready to watch the sunrise. I’m glad I did.

The grass has turned to gold. There are long shadows falling across it that were hidden by the night. Dewdrops too! Like tiny sparkling pearls on the tips of each blade, perhaps unlike anywhere else in this vast universe of life and wonder. I watch the sun climb above the world and feel its warmth on my face. Serendipity.

I certainly did get to breathe the air. So many good things happened in Lent! Oftentimes I wondered what I would have written about them, and almost tried to make notes - but it was a lovely thing to not feel compelled to tweet, nor post on Instagram, nor write about them here. Even now I feel free of that burden. And it’s Easter! Seems like a good time to be free from a thing, if ever there were one.

If I close my eyes here in the park, I feel the warm Spring sunlight and hear the birds. I could almost be back in that garden, the garden tomb in Jerusalem that Paul and I visited at the end of my birthday. There’s a weird linkage between that moment and this - there, it was sunset in a place made famous by a sunrise; here, I’m watching the sunrise in a place I normally see it set. Nonetheless, I imagine those olive trees, the birds singing for joy, the quiet, empty garden being lit by resurrection sunlight. A silhouetted figure stands by the wine press, the light of life bursting from the cracked stone, the broken earth, the empty tomb. It feels like a new season.

The day has begun now. The sun’s already bright and warm and too difficult to look at. The early morning dog walkers are out and the park is coming to life with the happiness of right place, right time as the world spins gladly into Easter Day. Call it serendipity if you like. It certainly looks like design to me.