MY LIGHTHOUSE

I’m back where I started this week: in The Ship with a pint of something cool.

I’ve been thinking a lot. Like, how you can combine being normal, authentic, well-grounded, respected, with being spiritual, challenging, and still connected to Heaven. It seems to me that so many people spin one way or the other and either compromise their beliefs, or run the risk of going weird and getting unapproachable. Not everyone! But some. What if you don’t want to go either way? What if you want to be in the world but not of the world? What if you want to be real?

Well. I’m outside a pub with a beer. Perhaps that’s part of it. Let me balance that out by writing about a lighthouse and then telling you what a great picture of church it is...

So, we went to a lighthouse today. Actually, is it that great a picture? As we sat on the grass in the shadow of Portland Bill Lighthouse, I did start to think it through - this is a building manned by very few people (if any) and its reason for existing is to keep people away from it. Hmm.

Anyway, it was an unexpected treat to see the words ‘Lighthouse Tours’ in big letters above the entrance. I didn’t think you could do that. So, that’s what my Dad and I did.

-

We stood in the circular room, looking out over the sea. Behind us, the enormous glass optic with its curved prisms and lenses. When lit, the lamp throws out thousands of candelas. Who knows how many ships that pulse of light has saved from the rocks?

The tour guide showed us the operations room just underneath the lantern. It would have been ever so cosy - an Aga in the corner, a whistling kettle and a wooden desk with a log book. Shipping maps covered the walls, and a bold-faced clock hung above the main window looking out to sea. In the centre of the room, the original shaft they would use to keep the clockwork motion of the turntable going.

Above, the lamp, silently rotating and sweeping across the bay; below, the mezzanine with the foghorn - compressed air blasting for miles through the sea fret.

“How did they keep it running through the night?” asked someone.

“Ah,” said the guide, smiling, “There would always be three of them: one at work, one on standby, and one at rest. Good system isn’t it?”

I think so. Not only does the light keep shining, but also everyone’s behaviour is forced into a confident pattern of work, standby, and rest. You always knew your role, and you always knew what depended on you doing it.

So tomorrow we go home. Rest becomes standby and then standby becomes work. 

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps the lighthouse is a good picture of church after all: there are few of us, but we each rely on each other to be at work, on standby, or at rest - and each shift is just as important as the other.

And of course, our job is to help each other navigate this life without shipwreck, without the disasters that are so easily unseen in the dark. And somehow, with a bit of light, and the odd blast of a foghorn, I reckon we can do that. I reckon that’s a good way to keep it real.

THE DUSKY ROMANCE OF OLD WEYMOUTH

My arms are on fire and my skin’s turned red. I’m like a peeled onion.

It was really windy on the beach today. The waves kicked up into white horses and the seagulls hovered like kites with no strings. Flags fluttered and flapped and windbreaks were bending, not to mention chairs blowing over into the dry sand as it whipped across the beach. It was hot too, at least it was when the wind died down.

I sat reading while the Intrepids flew their pocket kites. I can’t fly kites for vertiginous reasons so I watched the shadows across the yellow sand.

There’s always much to see on the beach: toddlers loving the waves and screaming, parents making sandcastles, old men with enormous bellies; young men with exactly the opposite and shorts they look like they’re still growing into. Teenage dynamics, keepie-uppie, girls face down on sun mats, lads wrestling with a pop up tent, young fathers with tiny tots on their shoulders, young mums doing their very best Jacqui Onassis, with sunglasses and flowing flower print, and of course new couples with eyes and hands only for each other. All the world’s a stage, said Shakespeare once, hopefully proving that ‘people watching’ is a keen cultural pursuit.

My skin feels like all the heat is locked inside it and it’s slowly radiating outwards. I’m like a raw hot water bottle, and unfortunately on such a balmy night, the one night that I definitely wouldn’t need one of those.

I went for a walk after dinner, all the way along to the rocks. It was cooler, and the crashing waves gave me chance to think about a few things. My skin still tingled beneath my jumper.

At the other end of the beach, beyond the clock, there’s a definite sense of older Weymouth. Rows and rows of old-fashioned looking chalets line the esplanade, grand but paint peeling, with rusty padlocks bolting each one shut and forgotten. The old Pier Bandstand juts out over the shingles but no pier emerges from it. And there, at the Green Hill end, the lamp posts are iron and ornate, with Victorian style orbs softly illuminating the curved lattices of the metal work.

I rather liked the dusky romance of all of that.

Behind the esplanade, old seafront houses and hotels rise into long lines of bay windows and balconies. I enjoyed walking past some of the B&Bs where you can peer in and see the tables with upturned tea cups ready for the morning. There’s something quaint about all of that.

Before long I was back on this side of the clock with the Royal Hotel, the funfair and the sand-blasted zebra crossing that took me back to our flat. I sneezed as I rounded the corner into the High Street. Belle’s Bakery was closed, much like everything else. I wrapped my sore arms a little deeper into my jumper, felt the wind tickle my sun-stretched face, and called it a day.

KING GEORGE AND THE BATHING MACHINE

There’s a statue here erected to King George III. He loved Weymouth apparently, and on the advice of his doctors, he made the town his summer residence.

He was the king who suffered from porphyria, interpreted at the time as ‘the madness of King George’. I can’t help wonder, sitting here on this sandy beach, if he’d discovered Weymouth sooner, we’d still have America as a colony. Probably not, plays go the way they go regardless of the actors sometimes. Nonetheless, some years later, the doctors thought the sea air might do him good.

Well. It’s not doing me any good. Against all reason the breeze is kicking my hay fever into overdrive today. My face is running and my nose is blocked. That’ll be all that grass you get in the sea I presume.

Anyway, we’re here somewhere between the ocean and the Gloucester hotel. Once a day, along this same sandy shore, footmen would have rolled two white ‘bathing machines’ out from the Gloucester, into the shallow waves. A bathing machine, if you’ve not seen one, is a sort of one-person cabin set on a cart. I can see the wheels kicking up the wet sand even now as they pushed it along.

At the given moment, the machine would stop in the sea, the figure of King George would emerge down its wooden steps, he’d wade into the cold water for a dip and the band (secreted in the other cart) would play ‘God Save the King’.

Quite the palaver. Though to be fair, it’s not a bad prayer when the naked monarch leaps into the English Channel from a wooden box.

After George’s time, the railways made towns like Weymouth suddenly accessible. It became a hotspot for tourists from Bath and Bristol, from London, and perhaps further. King George III would probably never have seen the kind of place it would become.

I dipped my toes in earlier. The water was freezing but of course, very refreshing. I really like the way the motion of the waves erodes the sand between your toes, and the waves cascade around your ankles. For the briefest moment I forgot my hay fever.

No band though. Probably just as well.

BOAT, BUS, STEAM

We went on a boat trip yesterday, after my morning quest to Elle’s bakery. The warm air dried the night rain and by the time we climbed aboard the Enchantress, it was already a passable summer’s day.

The captain waited until we were right out in the harbour before he told us that the Enchantress had actually seen military action... in the Second World War. I studied the hull for cracks, and tried not to look at the seventy-year-old floor.

Today, we were in need of more of an inland adventure, so after examining timetables, we caught the Number Thirty bus to Swanage, with an eye on taking a steam train to Corfe Castle.

I asked the Intrepids whether they remembered the golden age of steam, which they both found funny (I know not why). Then, after a quick lunch on Swanage Beach we climbed aboard a mahogany carriage and waited for that puff and rattle of a steam engine, followed by the creak of the brakes, and then the steady chuffing over the sleepers. These things still seem to carry so much old-fashioned romance with them.

The journey is around twenty minutes, and definitely gets you wondering whether modernisation is ultimately inevitable. Steam is glorious, but also slow. Sitting on a carriage is effectively like being on an old-fashioned bus. It’s uncomfortable, but only because you know better.

Anyway, we got to Corfe Castle and I remembered with a shock that the last time I was here, I was with my friend who passed away last month. Sitting in the tea shop garden with the roses, the bright June sunshine, and the imposing ruin behind us reminded me exactly of that day - when we sat there by the castle. It all looked exactly the same; there was an incongruous collection of feelings all of a sudden.

Well there it was: Corfe Castle - grey limestone, over a thousand years old and a marker of centuries gone by, as well as perhaps more recent times. We didn’t have time to look around, so we sat drinking tea, and I read the history from Wikipedia.

The bus ride back took an hour or so, winding through the sunny Dorset countryside: Osmington Mills where a white horse is complete with King George III on the hillside. Lulworth Cove again of course, and on through the luscious green valleys. Eventually, the sea sparkled and Weymouth suddenly sprawled across the bay.

“I think I’d like to walk along for a bit,” I said, whimsically as we alighted from the bus. It was the golden hour: long shadows, warm sun, stiff breeze. We sat on the beach and poured some tea from the flask. Custard creams appeared from somewhere and my Dad sank into his binoculars, trying to find Durdle Door on the opposite side of the bay.

“So highlights from today?” I asked my Mum, sipping tea from a plastic cup. “What was the best bit?”

“Probably this bit,” she said. I nodded in agreement.

LARDY CAKE

It had rained overnight. The air had that freshness to it and the pavements and road were still dark and shiny. I wrapped my hoodie around me and set off up the High Street.

Cars, parasols, shop front signs and railings were all damp with rainwater. Even some of the bustling crowd still had umbrellas, though the sky was just breaking with sun.

Flags fluttered outside the grand St Mary’s Church, advertising their coffee morning. Opposite, Costa was bristling with the early morning rush. Someone appeared from a pink doorway carrying a plastic Elvis. Another lady was setting out metal chairs under a rain-washed awning. Elvis was in place as I walked by, sitting mid-heartbreak-hotel on a bar stool, as though it were still somehow 1957.

I walked on. I like a seaside town for its melancholy, and this morning, on the way to the bakery, Weymouth wasn’t disappointing. The gulls swooped and squawked above the nautical rooftops. In a distant street, presumably round the back of some pub, someone emptied a tonne of glass bottles into a skip. The air was still and glorious, as often morning air can be.

My Mum’s taken to trying to guess what those nautical rooftops might originally have been. One, a triangular slate roof with carved stonework and round porthole windows, another with tall Corinthian pillars and grand apex portico. Still others look Georgian with large, sometimes curved windows. A bank? The old guildhall? A hotel?

I don’t think she appreciates me flippantly saying ‘Freemasons, probably’ whenever I catch her looking up at the windows over Tesco Express or the Poundstretcher. 

Anyway, this morning while I ambled through the early morning streets, the Intrepids were still asleep. And it was my turn to take it all in.

“Do you have any lardy cake?” I asked when I finally got to Belle’s Bakery at the top of the street. Belle did (I assume it was Belle anyway) so she slipped a slab of it into a paper bag and made me swap it for two pounds. Then I crossed the road, went over to the Esplanade and dreamed out over the sea.

The sand of course was darkened by the rain. The smart white railings were jewelled with droplets and all the attractions, the Punch and Judy, the zorb pool and the trampolines were drenched, waiting for the sun.

Out in the bay, the gentle waves were lapping at the shore, whispering as they softly collapsed on the sand. The sea sounded as though it was breathing - in, out, splash, ripple, pool back, the great rhythm of the ocean, tiny wave after tiny wave.

The smell of lardy cake wafted up, deliciously, and I realised I needed to get it home before it compelled me to eat it. Having got up early, breaking the tiredness cycle, it would have been a shame to have got the day off to a start by scoffing a lardy cake. A real, delicious shame.

AT DURDLE DOOR

I’m not sure I fully realised how tired I’ve been. Sometimes it takes a holiday to do that; to show you how depleted your body has actually become.

I’m whacked out.

We went to two places today: Lulworth Cove, which is a delightfully circular harbour of sloping cliffs, and Durdle Door, a famous limestone and sandstone arch jutting out into the sea.

Lulworth was enveloped with cloud. Like Dragon Island, the mist swirled above the cliff tops, giving the impression that those long inclines reached into the sky forever. Below them, a crescent of sand and stones swept round the flat bay. Cool and green, the water bobbed against the shore, more pond than ocean. A handful of small sailing boats nodded with the gentle waves.

I think I’m tired because I haven’t been eating or sleeping well these last few weeks. Getting up and (often) sprinting for the bus has taken a toll, especially when I don’t typically get to sleep before midnight. I reckon I’ve been starting days with an energy deficit.

Add into that my appalling inability to prep food for myself (despite, admittedly, all the help I could ask for) and the result is a bit of a crash. I think that may have happened to me.

“Durdle DOOR!” shouted a man with a West Country accent at Lulworth Cove. He was standing on the jetty, selling boat rides. “Next sailing in half an HOUR!” he cheerily went on - gesturing to his rickety wooden boat. We looked out through the mist to the grey ocean. The horizon was missing. Probably best, we thought, to drive there and see it from the clifftops.

There’s obviously a lot on my mind too. The canyon dream shook me yesterday, and it still lingers. I don’t cope with loss. Also, it occurs to me that rewiring my life so that I’m eating, sleeping, exercising and travelling in balance could be daunting.

“Seems a bit cloudy,” my Dad said as we arrived in the clifftop car park above Durdle Door. Indeed it was. It was all cloud. There was grass and fence and people on the South West Coast Footpath. Then there was impenetrable white. The world ended and the fog began.

We walked through it. Down on the other side, Man o’War Bay gave me vertigo, then around the corner, we were suddenly looking at Durdle Door.

“It’s iconic isn’t it?” said a hiker strolling by. He didn’t wait for an answer. I was thinking about a few weeks ago when I’d seen Durdle Door on Instagram with the Northern Lights flickering over it in one of those fancy travel photos you get. Standing there, looking South over the arched rock, on the South Coast, from the South West Coast Path, it occurred to me that that insta-scene was entirely impossible, and had been thoroughly photoshopped.

Sometimes a thing can look real and not be. Sometimes a life can look in better shape than it is. I think though, having identified the three areas of difficulty, the reasons why I’m so whacked out all of a sudden, I ought to pick one, let’s say food, and do something about it. The adventure’s too grand to be undone by such a simple mistake as not packing enough food for the journey, right?

Iconic or not, there Durdle Door was. And far below, chopping against the waves, was a small, rickety wooden boat.

NOTHE FORT

We went to a fort yesterday. I like an old fort or a castle, stepping back into history, peering through rough hewn arrow slits and gun barrels.

I’d had a dream the previous night that had unsettled me: watching a friend slip out of my grip into a canyon. It was a bit like the movie Cliffhanger, but not quite so dramatic. Even so, I didn’t feel like getting too close to the edge of the ramparts.

Nothe Fort juts out into the sea, a semi-circular battlement that was used for centuries to defend the bay against enemy ships. From war against the French, to spotting ironclad German vessels and planes, the fort was practically impenetrable.

I walked round the battlements at the top, the wind roaring and fluttering the flags above me. There were anti-aircraft guns, painted the thick green of World War II. There was a huge 6” cannon, and positions for smaller rapid far weapons. Built into the rock were smart, square ammunition cupboards, and giant hooks for chains that once tethered Victorian 64 pounders. At one time or other, this place was thunderous with noise.

The wind rushed. Below, the gentle chink of cutlery and chatter, and a small speaker playing marching band music. The sea, stretching out to the horizon was peaceful and free, with only fishing boats and pleasure yachts. We live in very different times.

CLOUDED HILLS

It was funny that Classic FM played the first few bars of Jerusalem, just as we rounded a bend of green hills and the sea opened up ahead.

It was a rich, deep blue today. Tiny white sails bobbed about under the perfect sky, and the natural sweep of Poole Harbour spread out before us.

“And did those feet, in ancient times...” sang the radio. I felt the twinge that every true Englishman feels at Hubert Parry’s score. We drove on, and into a sunny Weymouth.

The Intrepids and I are on holidays again. I’m on meals, my Mum’s on transport, and my Dad’s on trips: it seems like the best way to handle it, and certainly this way round makes it less likely to be stressful.

Speaking of which, I’ve found myself at The Ship Inn, by the harbour, while they rest from the journey. Seagulls swoop over the fishing boats, and groups of locals and tourists drink, in the balmy night air. I brushed the sand from my jeans and sat al fresco with a pint of something cool.

I feel like there’s a lot to let go of this week: stagnant old attitudes to things, a few hurts I didn’t know I had, worries and anxieties that don’t belong to me. This week might be timely, at least. It might of course, just be good for my body to eat well, sleep even better, and remember that it houses something precious.

Or perhaps, as often seems to be the way, it’s an opportunity for the ‘countenance divine’ to ‘shine forth upon our clouded hills.’ Seems to me that might be exactly what a holiday is for. 

(INTERNATIONAL) MAN OF MYSTERY

I got called a ‘man of mystery’ today. I don’t know why; there’s not much to me.

It could be that I’m quiet and don’t engage a lot in office hijinks. I can’t actually: I’m way too old to be in on the 20s banter zone, and I’m way too unsettled to join in with the tired-because-of-small-children lot. I’m not cynical enough to stay at the pub complaining about ‘management’, and I’m not ‘managery’ enough to ‘bluesky’ those anti-cynical corporate values we all have to pretend to believe in.

That leaves me then as a quiet ‘man of mystery’. And not even an ‘international’ one! A sort of boring Bond who sits at a desk and argues for the use of ‘either’ to refer to a list of more than two options. Queen and Country yes, but with a spellchecker. I’m basically Basil Exposition.

Well. It’s inspired me to be inquisitive about others. Let’s do away with the fear of breaching the politeness gap! Let’s bury the myth that personal questions are pathways to the HR office; I don’t believe it. And even if I did, I think it’s worth the risk.

Perhaps there are others leading interesting lives who’d like someone to know. Perhaps shyness holds some of them back; perhaps fear of being ostracised or judged.

Well. Perhaps there are more men and women of mystery out there, waiting for their time to step out of the shadows, find a tribe, and make a friend. One question might just unlock them!

If not... er... I’ll be in HR.

ELVES FIDDLE WITH MY PHOTO ALBUM

I think it might have been an elf who put a picture of a pregnancy-test-kit in amongst my Israel photos.

As I was happily showing them off on my iPad, I swiped right from a picture of Paul outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and suddenly the room was looking wide-eyed at a photo of a Clearblue monitor blatantly saying +3 Pregnant.

Elves. It’s elves that do this. I went bright red, which didn’t help. The room burst out laughing.

I’d forgotten of course that Winners had sent me a picture back in February to tell me that he and Teebs were expecting a baby. I’d got it in Israel via WhatsApp but couldn’t tell anyone. So the picture migrated its way into my photo album and I had forgotten it was there.

I nervously went through the rest of the album. What else could the elves have done with it? What else had anyone sent me that week? What else had I taken photos of?

It was all fine of course. Just birthday messages and motivational quotes interspersed with Jerusalem, Masada and the Sea of Galilee and me looking happy in the spring sunshine.

I should probably go on holiday again; I could do with a little of that happiness I remember. Next week, the Intrepids and I are off to Weymouth on our travels, so there is at least some hope of that. Just hoping the elves don’t mess it up.

CABIN IN THE WOODS

Sometimes I think I’d like a cabin in the woods.

Logs out front for chopping, ready for the wood burner and those cold winters’ evenings. A rocking chair on the verandah and cool homemade lemonade, long pines that catch the rain and drop the scented water from smooth green leaves.

There’d be shovels for snow and forks for Autumn, propped up against the outhouse. There’d be wind chimes singing with the night breezes, and a weather vane that creaks as it turns. I’d sit and just listen to the wind. Sometimes. Or maybe the crickets or the dawn chorus flittering through the tall trees.

Inside, through the screen door, the long oak table, rough hewn and splintered, surrounded by wooden chairs with soft cushions. A cat, or maybe a faithful dog would be curled on the covered sofa, catching the last rays of sunlight flooding through the single pane window.

I’d like this. It would be a simple, unfussy, clear-headed life, far away from the overcomplicated rat-race. Perhaps I’d sit and pet the dogcat for a while, or wind up a gramophone for something classical. Perhaps I’d fall asleep as the forest grows dark and the cabin is bathed in silvery moonlight. Perhaps an owl would wake me.

Well. I don’t have that, other than in my imagination. I have a messy flat and a spiralling life, a complex network of emotions, and a dreadful fear of loneliness that I know deep in my heart, would not be solved by the cabin in the woods.

Still sometimes I think I’d like it. Sometimes.

RUCKSACK LOADING

My work rucksack broke the other week. Lots of people took no time at all to tell me that it was too full of stuff: laptop, notebooks, power cables, various chargers, a tourist's guide to Dublin, you know, all the essentials.

And indeed it was heavy. All my rucksacks seem to get mysteriously heavy over time - I think it's physics more than anything - and so ultimately, in the case of my overflowing, fully-stuffed, multi-pocketed work bag, I tried to do it up and the zip broke.

Naturally then, at the earliest possible opportunity (and on the advice of my friends and family) I bought a new one: a nice shiny flat one that you can walk out of the store with, slung over your shoulder with the tag bobbing on the handle.

I thought about my friends and family this morning as I stuffed my raincoat into that new rucksack. I needed my laptop and a charging cable, so obviously they slipped in. So did the iPad (I need it for later) and of course its own charger (always useful). Then my lunch (sandwiches and a fruit pot) and a bottle of water (of which I don't drink enough), a spare jumper, two packs of Munchies, and a banana.

I swung the rucksack over my shoulder and climbed into it like a paratrooper. It was heavy. Of course it was. Physics eh.

POKÉMON HUNTERS

I walked back from lunch and happened to peer in at the building next door. There was a meeting going on.

Six men sat around a table. I counted them. Smart shirts (one slightly pinkish), short hair greying at the temples, some of the faces furnished with thick-rimmed spectacles. Each wore coloured lanyards, and there were laptops angled open on the table, all clustered around a compact digital projector.

One of them (obviously talking, obviously in control) gestured wide with his hands. He had a relaxed style, a gold watch glimmering on one wrist. The other hand span a pen with all the flair of a Victorian showman. The boss, I imagined.

What were they talking about? Sales figures? Upcoming projects? Outsourcing? Restructuring? Customer engagement? Budgets? Pokémon?

Well they may as well have been, I suppose, discussing strategies on how best to 'catch 'em all'; it makes just as much difference to me.

Then I started wondering about how many offices up and down the land are full of similar rooms of similar people having similar meetings. And for what? To sell more stuff, to make better decisions, to communicate values, to hire, to fire, to drop, to acquire, to search and yes, perhaps indeed to capture invisible pocket monsters by any other name?

It all seems so serious and consuming. Will they remember what they said in a year? Will we? What's really important? I mean, really?

Anyway, on that existential note, I found my way back to my own office. The new furniture for the kitchen refurb had arrived in piles of flat-pack boxes, and about fifteen people were busy putting it together in a flurry of cardboard and packets of screws. That's how we roll.

I wonder what those six executives would have made of the scene as they walked past our window.

COUSCOUS

More listening on the bus today. As it rattled its way through the wormhole with its grumbling engine, the dreary conversations on-board the Number Fifteen caught my ear. Two ladies (Berkshire accents, few consonants) sat behind me.

"Yeah so I got home and found a note saying summing like please eat the couscous I made specially at school."

"Cous cous?"

"Yeah. Cous cous. It's like rice, I think. Anyway, I tried a little bit and oh my days, it just tasted like dried egg. It's disgusting; I'm gonna have to scrape it in the bin and pretend I really liked it aren't I? I'll say, 'Oh! It was amazing!'"

They both laughed before a thoughtful pause.

"What if she looks in the bin?"

"Nah, she ain't that clever."

That was sad. It's simply not the way to talk about anyone, let alone your children.

Then there was another woman, taking her little boy to pre-school. He could have been four or five years old, perhaps even younger.

"No, leave it. You've broken it now, haven't you?" she barked. The boy looked at her miserably, as though a series of things had just happened that he didn't understand, but were all somehow still his fault. Surely bewildering your kids is just not going to help them.

She went back to her phone - the world in her pocket. I smiled at him, before remembering of course, that these days that kind of thing could get me into trouble. What a world.

She pinged the bell, the bus driver slowed down, and the brakes squealed.

"No, next one please!" she shouted forwards. The driver was hidden from view, but I imagined his face as the bus pulled back into the traffic.

Eventually, she got off at the right stop, the little boy shuffling his way down the aisle in front of her.

"Come on, come on, we haven't got all day!" she snapped. No older than five, I reckon he was - Sarcasm! I doubt children that young have any concept of sarcasm beyond its cruel tone.

They got off. The bus wound its way around the housing estate with me on it, gazing out of the window and thinking about the universe flashing by.

I'll probably never be a parent.

The rain streaked against the window and the bus rumbled on.

SNAIL PACE

It wasn't raining quite so seriously this morning but I scooped up my umbrella from outside the front door anyway, locked up, and strode into the drizzle. I'd make it to the bus stop if I walked quickly.

-

"I'm sorry I'm late," I said an hour later, finally arriving in a fluster of raincoat and rucksack.

I had missed the bus, and by extension the 'Stress and Resilience Seminar' in the board room at 9am. There was a certain irony about that I thought, as I whirled my laptop into motion.

What had happened was that halfway to the bus stop I noticed a snail crawling its way out of my umbrella.

It was a very ordinary snail: slimy skirts and shiny shell; two antennae waved at me as it twisted its slippery head. For some reason I imagined it peering at me with a monocle and gesturing to me in a posh, sleepy accent.

"I say, dear boy. Would you mind awfully, dropping me off?"

I didn't, and so I did. I crouched by the side of the road, waiting for him to slide off my umbrella into the undergrowth. I don't think he wanted to go, so eventually, I pinched forefinger and thumb around his shell and popped him off into the leaves.

"Why thank you, old bean."

The bus sailed by. The drizzle continued as I waited for the next one.

SUPER-TIRED AND TOO REFLECTIVE

I mooched over to the window, mug in hand. Out there, beyond the cold glass, the rain thundered into the lake. Rows of water droplets collected along the edge of the guttering, rolling like marbles until they dripped off. The sky was bleak and grey above the office roofs and the full-leafed June trees.

I’m super-tired. My head’s too heavy for my shoulders and my mind is woozing in and out of reality. I feel disconnected, as though already in a dream - but not the kind of dream where consequences don’t matter - the kind of dream where everything is real enough for it all to be just about believable.

There was a ghostly grey reflection out there on the lake: superimposed on the world as though belonging to a different time when everything was a bit less confusing or frightening, holding a translucent mug of tea, sighing back at me in reverse. It occurred to me that I was the only person who could see him.

I’m clearly way too tired for a Monday. I’ve also got something wrong with the inside of my head that paints the world grey sometimes. Well I mean it actually is literally grey today anyway, like a proper rainy downpour of a day, but that isn’t really helped by being a bit colourblind sometimes.

HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS

I’ve been thinking a little bit about money today. This will sound weird probably, but here it is. I’d quite like to give away... hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Right. I don’t actually have hundreds of thousands of pounds. I hope that’s really clear: I don’t; there’ll be no giveaway today; don’t write in, it’s just not happening.

But that’s the point: I kind of wish it could.

Money’s weird stuff isn’t it. It’s like tall buildings - the view is very different from the top. It gets into your system, messes with your heart, changes your outlook, your priorities, your lifestyle and, if you let it, your friends. That’s why I’m a little reluctant with this thought about giving away large amounts that I don’t have... Like Frodo on the cusp of Mount Doom, I have a feeling the ring may take hold of me and I’d want to keep my millions for myself! As I say, the view is very different up there compared to down here. I just don’t know.

Or do I? The challenging point is that I do have at least some money. And it would seem ridiculous to think I could give away an ocean of the stuff when I’m currently clutching a jar for myself. So what am I doing with that?

These thoughts are uncomfortable. But my motivation is to know what it feels like to do some real good in the world, to change things for the better, to make this a nicer place to live, maybe even to show that wealthy people can be free of the terrible prison that a lot of money sometimes makes for them.

Well. There’s things I can do. I shan’t be talking about them though. If money itself is funny stuff, something weirder happens when you start talking about it with other people. If though one day, you see me diving into a vat of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, you have permission to tell me I missed the mark and point me right back to what I said here today. It is way better to give than to receive.

OI OI

I’m on a bus with some teenagers who are editing pictures of themselves on their phones. One of them keeps saying ‘Oi oi!’

How’s that got into the lingo? All the other tropes are there: the upward inflection, the over use of adverbs like actually, properly, definitely, and seriously. Yeah makes its customary appearance and there have been some dropped T consonants and likes.

But a cockney exclamation of oi oi is new. Is it some TV show? It’s slipped in where a few years ago an OMG would have gone, which in a way, is a good thing.

The thing is - it’s the kind of thing I might say. I’m not going to launch into a ‘I’m not being funny yeah but...’ but I can hear myself exclaim ‘oi oi!’ should I find some unexpected chocolate, or an old friend appears on the other side of the road.

So, does that make me sort of officially cool? I mean alongside my retro Top Gun t-shirt and my 1978 baseball cap of course. Feel free to let me know if it does. Though of course, if you greet me with an ‘oggy oggy oggy’ I might just have to respond appropriately.