The daffodils, bright trumpet heralds of day-long light and warm-air
nights, have crisped and curled, ceding their colour to Magnolia,
Forsythia, Wisteria and other … errr…[note to self: spend more time
on florifery].
…And so the summer days glide in, imperceptible, pleasingly
inexorable, carrying with them the sweet promise of sunshine, bare skin
and balmy evenings – and freedom from the winter-weights of overcoats,
strangling scarves and umbrellas.
Another harbinger of summer bursts into my rush-hour musing… a TWOC
(Tourist with Oyster Card), at the ticket barrier; Why now?… Why can’t
they travel when I don’t?… Do they not know that I have fine-tuned my
journey timing over eons so that I can arrive at Starbucks precisely in
the lull between office-workers and babes-in-buggies? Is there no TEFL
course in Oyster use? Why do they always, inevitably and without
exception leave their card too long on the pad?
These irritant life forms, sometimes loud, sometimes uncertain, but
always distracted from the task of travel by their holiday mood (where
do they find that at rush-hour?) are in my way! Missing the green light,
getting the red, blocking the easy flow of know-how local
Oyster-masters. They are, I reflect, as I glottalstop into the
back-stepping Oyster in front, the opposite of the Domino effect. What
do you call that – the concertina-d commuter queues which inevitably
form at a TWOC-struck barrier? Irritated? Of course I’m irritated.. but
I’m ever-so politely English about it – it’s only a queue after all. The
‘Seek Assistance‘ alert is not for us, you know, it’s for them. Why
then, I reflect, is it only in English?
