The Commute

I leave the house and start up the hill in the light fog, other, distant figures half-visible in front of me. I turn right to start the long-descent to the valley floor and the Station, pausing at the rate-limiting step of my journey to await a break in traffic. As I continue, I become aware of others, striding with greater purpose, ,perhaps they know something I don't? I speed up, tension building in my shins until I'm afraid they'll crack, shatter like trees in an Arctic frost - they don't.

At the station I look along the platform at my fellow commuters, grey in the gloaming, hunched like armadillos, against what - the cold, the impending Pendolino not stopping at Platform 2, the Damoclean doom of a full working-week?

The train arrives, I find a seat and look around at the sleepers, the readers, the caffeine-hungry and the just-plain hungry. We move off, cocooned in a warm oasis of gloom, the reassuring pressure of cushion on buttock giving us a pre-emptive superiority over those others, the less- fortunate, who will get on later and stand, teetering, into London. Is it worth the extra money, this seat? You betcha!

The taste of ash.

I have recently moved, I bought a property on March the 8th and moved in on December the 11th. Now, you would have thought that in the intervening time I might have done all the necessary work, got the place shipshape, so to speak. However, I elected to build the kitchen myself, British Man pitting himself against the Swedes, uneven walls and floors, and his own ability to draw a straight line. The resulting depression has come like a hammer-blow from the Gods, I cannot draw a straight line, saw a straight line, make anything horizontal or vertical. My latest paramour is full of, "I can't understand why you don't...", "Why didn't you...", "Why haven't you..." and "But...", so much so, that last night I hung up on her, perhaps demoting her from "latest" to "last". Though she did send me multiple pictures of pygmy hedgehogs in the bath (to be honest I'd prefer pictures of her in the bath) to "cheer me up".

Why? Because all these phrases resonate in my echoing pate, mainly because they already exist there, they chime and echo, thrum in harmony with the catgut of my worry, smothered with a blanket of stubbornness, and - to be honest, fear. Fear of, "I don't know how to.", "I've never done this before.", "How do you find a kitchen fitter?". Fear of the unknown (though I do ask directions).

Let me tell you about cack-handedness - fitting the handles - I did what every good fitter, self-help book (of which I shall now need a few, though not relating to DIY), sensible person, does and made a template. I marked and drilled, two of the handles didn't fit, and it was after I drilled that I realised that that particular design is only supposed to be mounted horizontally.

My weekend is to be spent, unpacking bags and boxes, and, ironically, packing the worktops to the horizontal. The good craftsmen of Hemel Homestead can look forward to a new year full of employment.

Gall and bile are bitter fruit.