Expedition

I really got quite ambitious today, and went for the big one – an excursion into the big smoke. In fact, I’m technically still there, as I’m writing this in a coffee shop. Very metro-sexual; blogging in a branch of Starbuck’s. In fact, though, I’m not online, as their wifi ‘hotspot’ is not progressive enough to accept my debit card. So my cunning plan of killing a few hours doing some proofreading whilst attempting to spin a latte out for five hours has come to nothing. And there are probably urgent things in my inbox that I don’t know about.

Hang on. This sounds like work anxiety. Aren’t I supposed to be warming the sofa, and having cups of tea brought to me? Isn’t the extent of my stress supposed to be about whether to watch Neighbours or aimlessly surf ebay? Surely something has gone wrong? This process of healing and normalisation is not all it is cracked up to be.

The other stress-raising factor has been negotiating London’s public transport system whilst trying to avoid large flights of stairs and any escalators. Trust me, this is no easy task. I now believe that everybody should try this once, just as a form of research. At least it would stop people from rushing to the ‘priority seats’ because they are feeling a little jaded, or because they need both hands to turn the pages of ‘Heat’ magazine. I had to stand for the duration of a long tram journey, not because it was particularly busy, but because the seats were always pinched by the passengers who had already proved their politeness credentials by getting on before anybody had a chance to leave. I resisted the temptation to say anything, not least because it is not pleasant having to spend a thirty-minute journey with somebody who is trying to give you the ‘evil eye’ every time you look up from your crossword. So I stood, and was pretty jaded by the time I even got to Covent Garden, where I had an audition. But for the busking slot. Pride has to be swallowed a good deal when the chips are down in my job. And it didn’t help that I saw that a soprano I duetted with at college is about to sing Mimi at the ROH. Them’s the breaks though, and she’s good, so I suppose that’s alright. I’ll let her off the personal slight that she has unknowingly dealt me.

A fortunate coincidence of my first trip into town has been that this audition coincided with a night out planned with a crowd of my friends. Andy Moore is back in town, fresh from defusing landmines in Angola. And the bugger has two working legs, so there is no justice. A decent evening looms though, but left me quite a few hours to kill in the West End. So I did what I always do in these circumstances, which was head for the National Gallery. Never before has it seemed so far away, or so echoingly large. But I bumped into two singing pals en-route, which just proves that it is actually a small world; it just feels like a large one when you’re having to negotiate it on crutches.

My cup of tea was finished some time ago. I would feel slightly more guilty about hogging the table if the kind assistant hadn’t taken my drink to the table without putting any milk in it first. And I'm sure I've added to Starbuck’s chic image by sitting here in my corduroy jacket, blogging away. In fact, I’ve even managed to get some product placement on the photo.