Cars

I’m a little bit of a car nut, I always have been. It comes from growing up with brothers who were into cars and from watching endless re-runs of The Italian Job and the car chase from Bullitt as a kid. I have so many memories through my childhood and teenage years of going to countless motor shows and collecting all the freebies on offer. Looking back, it must have irritated the hell out of my mother. We’d bring back armfuls of stuff which would just sit around gathering dust. What did it matter though – I had a carrier bag from Lotus, full of free stickers from Ford – how cool was that! Of all the car shows me and my mates used to go to though, the one which was the most constant was one in our own town in North London and was called the Enfield Pageant of Motoring.

It was only just up the road from where I used to live and we used to go there on our bikes. If you were a kid and into cars, then it was a smorgasbord of adventure. There were traction engines and classic cars from the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. There was a large autojumble and historic buses and army vehicles and motorbikes. There was even a funfair for children and families. The funny thing with car shows though, is that sometimes the most interesting cars are not in the show at all, but actually belong to paying visitors and can be found out in the car park.

At the age of around 9 or 10 we’d cycle around the car park, trying to see if we could spot a Ferrari or an Aston Martin. Occasionally we’d see something like a 1971 Alfa Romeo Spider, just as the owner would be getting into it. “Corrr nice car” we’d say, as he’d slip on a pair of shades, fire up the engine and give it a rev. I want to be him one day, I’d think as he’d drive off.

I mention all this of course, as I was driving through Enfield last Monday on my way to visit family and remembered that it was the bank holiday that the Enfield Pageant was on. I drive an old MGB Roadster myself and I was curious to see if I could pick up any parts for it at the autojumble and see what cars might be on display – or indeed, in the car park.

I drove in and parked up. Looking around the show, it seemed pretty much as I remembered it. The traction engines were still there, as was the funfair, the autojumble and the historic car clubs. The cars were newer though. The classics from the 50’s and 60’s had now been replaced by those from the 70’s and 80’s. There were more old American cars than I remembered. A large collection was displayed in a tent with a band playing Rockabilly music as a group of brylcreemed geriatric rockers tried their best to rock around the clock in front of the stage. As I spent the best part of a couple of hours walking around the show, I was struck by nostalgia and the memories of past times at the same place – of heading home afterwards and Mum making dinner before we’d get ready for school the next morning.

I bought a couple of things from the autojumble and after completing another circuit of the show, decided that it was time to head to Hertfordshire to see the family. I headed back to my car and put the things in the boot. The sun was starting to shine and I put on a pair of sunglasses as I opened the drivers door. “Wicked car mate!” said a voice. I looked around to see 3 kids on bikes looking at my MG. “That’s sic, I bet it goes well fast” said another. “Thanks” I said as I climbed in. I started the engine and gave it a rev – much to their approval. I reversed out and drove off, grinning to myself as I realised that I was now the guy in the car park that I had always wanted to be.

The Pianist - Part 2

I had half expected the phone line to be engaged with the world and his wife calling in to LBC about this and that. Surprisingly though it answered after only two rings. I spoke to a guy at the other end, saying that I had just seen Iain Dale’s tweet about reviewing something on the show and that I’d been to see James Rhodes concert at the Ambassadors Theatre earlier in the week. “That’s great” he said. “Can you email Iain about it and leave your contact details.” This I did and I drafted an email which pretty much described the evening in the same way I did in last week’s update. It was slightly longer than intended but I figured that the better it read, then the more likely I would be to get a response. I wasn’t desperately hopeful of a reply, but what did I have to lose. As it happened, he emailed me back within 5 minutes and asked if I’d like to come on the show to talk about it. He said that the producer would telephone me at around 9:45.

Now for the panic, what would I say? I had visions of my mouth drying up or of gabbling – unable to get the words out fast enough. I was also quite excited though as I had never been on the radio before and in my excitement I updated Twitter and Facebook that I’d be “Going on LBC between 9:30pm and 10pm to talk about the James Rhodes concert this week.” Ok, it was only a phone in, but what the hell.

I clock watched with the intensity of a union official as the minutes ticked by achingly slowly, my mobile phone glaring like a beacon as I looked at the display - 9:45, 9:46, 9:47...”Come on, ring dammit” 9:48 etc etc... I paced my lounge as in my mind I ran through a number of things to say, before finally constructing a nicely thought out little review. “Yep yep, that’ll work” I thought as I settled on a nice idea which abruptly went straight out of my mind as the phone in my hand started ringing. It was the producer - he called to say that the show had overrun and so unfortunately they wouldn’t have time for me that evening. I was slightly gutted, although he did mention that Iain Dale would read out my email. This was a silver lining at least, but I cheekily asked if he might tweet my blog and he said that Iain may well do. This could be something. Iain Dale has over 20,000 followers on Twitter and if he might be kind enough to tweet my blog link, then the potential for gaining new blog readers and getting the blog and therefore my writing noticed, could be immense.

I popped out for locally for a drink with friends. I wasn’t going to be on the radio, but at least my email, which was quite a good one I thought, would be read out. I received a few texts from people who had read my updates on Twitter and Facebook. They said it was a shame they hadn’t heard me but that the email sounded good. I headed home just after midnight with the intention of going straight to bed. Curiosity had got the better of me though and I switched on the PC to see if the blog had been tweeted. Sadly it hadn’t, although I noted that I had one new follower. Would it be someone random I wondered? Would it be someone I knew? Might it even be Iain Dale? I clicked and looked down the list to see my new follower - @JRhodesPianist.

The Pianist - Part 1

I have always admired, albeit with a tinge of jealousy, people who say they are in their dream job. For me, that would involve drinking too much coffee, bashing out a couple of thousand words daily and being taken to lunch by my literary agent at Shoreditch House or the Ivy Club – well you’ve got to aspire haven’t you. Much as this is something that I am ever so slowly working towards, I have on occasion been disheartened by the pessimism of others. A friend recently said “Do you realise how many people want to be writers and how few actually succeed?” blah blah “You’re not getting any younger... maybe you should stick with what you’re doing.” This coincided with a manic period at work where I was doing two people’s jobs. The longer hours and extra responsibility combined with the voice of my friend in my head began to sew seeds of doubt in my mind. Was he right? Maybe now in my mid-ish thirties I had missed the writing boat. Should I just work harder, push myself more and take on extra responsibility forging a career where I am? Whilst not being a dream, it would at least be a career and would pay well. I couldn’t just do that though. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then you’ll know that’s just not me. I needed something to help me see that I might not just be pissing into the wind and that with perseverance I might just get somewhere. I needed a renewed inspiration, and boy oh boy did I get it.

Imagine that from a young age, you have a dream and that you work as hard as you can in trying to achieve that dream. Imagine then discovering that, however obsessed with your passion you are, and that however many years you’ve been working towards it, that your technical abilities aren’t good enough for what you want to do. That you might as well give up and go and do something else. Imagine then that you then opt for a career in the City in the belief that earning lots of money might make up of the abandonment of a career in something you had pursued since childhood. And that ultimately you are boring yourself stupid and knowing that you dreamt of a different outcome. After 10 years in your career, would you give it up and go back to try something you once destined yourself to do?

Well it’s not mere imagination, for the person I’ve described is real and is called James Rhodes and it was my brother who first introduced me to him through the power of You Tube. When he was young he started playing the piano and his dream was to be a classical pianist. He walked away from it though at the age of 18 and in the 10 years since he went to work in the City, he hadn’t even been within touching distance of those 88 keys that are now the tools of his trade. After he quit his job and practised and practised, he randomly met someone in a cafe who heard him play and offered him the chance to make an album and now, in only a few short years, he has a 6 album deal with Warner.

As I watched him talk on You Tube about his passion for the piano and the boredom of working in the City, I immediately got what he was talking about. It had taken a truck load of work to get to where he is now, but he had done it, is doing it and it gave me an inspirational focus on what I knew that I wanted to do.

I saw that he was playing a concert in London at the Ambassadors Theatre and booked tickets. It was fantastic. I’ve always enjoyed classical music although have never been to see a classical pianist before. The image of such is traditionally a formal affair with a guy in white tie and tails who plays and plays and plays without saying a word to the audience before eventually leaving the stage. With James Rhodes however, he walked on stage and chatted with the audience. He introduced every piece of music with a clear passion and gave you an understanding of what exactly it was he was about to play and what the composer was doing in his life at the time of composing it - be it a period of great sadness or youth and frivolity and so on. The intimacy of the venue combined with the way James spoke to the audience between pieces, almost made you feel like he was playing in your front room.

I went home feeling energized. What would I write next? The evening had given me a renewed optimism and I wanted to tell someone about it. The next day, I was flicking though Twitter when I saw a post by Iain Dale the blogger and radio presenter on LBC: “Have you seen a good concert or film this week and would like to review it on the show? Get in touch!” Perfect – I picked up the phone and dialled the number...

Taxi

It’s 2am and the bar where the party has been held is closing. I am one of a group of people who spill out onto the street into the cold night air as I face the realisation that the tube trains have stopped running and I live at least two night buses away. Like vultures circling a stricken animal, the cabal of mini cab drivers close in. I am drunk and tired I want to say bugger off and to go and find a black cab. But I don’t want to have to come back having not found one and then have to go through the humiliation of saying “Hey listen guys, I know I told you to bugger off, but are any of you by chance going my way?” It’s cold and late and I’m wobbling. Fuck it – haggle!

“Where are you going to?” says a big West Indian guy. “East London” I tell him. He pauses for a moment, and then says “Thirty quid!” You’re having a fucking laugh, I think but keep this quietly to myself. “So? Thirty quid?” he asks again, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Twenty Five” I say. “Twenty Nine” he says. “Twenty Six” I say. “Twenty Nine” he says. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to come down one?” I suggest. “No” he says “You won’t get lower than Twenty Nine to East London on a Saturday night.” The solidarity of the group of cab drivers holds firm and they all back up his claim. Sod it, I’m cold and I can’t be bothered to go scouring the streets of Fulham for a black cab at this time of morning. I grumble like a petulant child “Okay then, Twenty Nine.”

We’re in silence as the car moves along the Chelsea Embankment. The Honda is at least 15 years old, and rattles and squeaks such that the dashboard seems to lurch from one side of the car to the other as he steers. It has a cheap deodorant smell of the sort which only seems to find its way into mini cabs and I’m thinking that whoever designed those things can only have grown up inside a musty toilet.

The driver turns up the volume on the radio so that he can enjoy Magic FM and then looks over at me. “Good night?” he says. “Great night” I confirm. “So what do you do?” he says. I think for a moment. “I’m a writer,” I say and immediately I like the sound of it. G was telling me only a few days earlier and after a couple of glasses of wine that I ought to think of myself as a writer. “Why should you have to be published before you call yourself a writer? Caravaggio sold bugger all when he was alive but it didn’t make him any less of a painter” she had said. It seemed a good enough reason.

“You’re a writer?” said the driver. “Uh huh” I said, the evening’s wine making me more confident in my assertion. “That’s great, I’d love to write” he said. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was just that it was a nice clear evening and I liked the confidence in my voice, but suddenly he had my full and animated attention. “You’d love to write? That’s brilliant!! Why don’t you?” I said a bit louder than intended. He laughed “Na, too old now, what’s the point?”

One thing that bugs me in life generally is defeatism. Fine, if you’ve tried and failed or discovered it wasn’t for you, then that’s one thing. But to give up on something you’d “love” to do, out of fear that it might not work, seems such a tragic waste of... well, a dream or a passion, for want of a better word. All this is going through my mind as we both talk over the suburban tones of Magic FM.

My desire to write has suddenly turned into an all consuming passion and I want him to know. I raise my voice again as I attempt to give him an inspiring pep talk. In my head this is my Henry V moment, “You have to write!! The ability to make people laugh or cry or feel happy or sad through the simple use of words is an amazing gift and if you have that ability then you can’t just give in or let it go...” As the words leave my mouth, I realise that my pep talk sounds more like a rant. Oh God, shut up now or he’ll throw you out.

But he doesn’t throw me out though, and as we drive through the City he suddenly smiles a broad grin so that I can see his teeth, including a gold molar. “You know what?” he says as he gets more vocal and bangs the steering wheel with his right hand, “I’m gonna do it! I’m really going to do it, you’ve convinced me man!!” “That’s fantastic – terrific!” I say as we go into a mutual congratulatory routine of pursuing our literary dreams.

We drive past Tower Bridge and a few minutes later we are in Wapping and he has pulled up in front of my building. “Well, thanks for a great conversation” he says as he gives me a firm handshake. “You’re going to do it aren’t you? You’re going to start writing aren’t you?? Promise me!?” I say, the wine in my system trying to hold him to some sort of contract. “I will, I’ll start tomorrow.” I’m half out of the door when I shake his hand and say, “Well all the best then, take care.”

“Hey, don’t you owe me a fare?” he says. In all the excitement of encouraging him to write and his deciding to write, I’d completely forgotten about the fare – well partially forgotten and partially hoped that he’d totally forgotten. “Oh yes, what did we say it was?” I ask, knowing full well that he wouldn’t budge earlier but now hoping that he’s had a change of heart. “Twenty Nine quid” he says.

“Twenty Nine quid?” I said slightly incredulously. “Do you not now feel inspired? Do you not now feel you want to pack this in and do something you’ve always wanted to?” “Yeah I do” he says “Then surely that’s worth something?” I say with a smile. He grins broadly showing the gold.

“Ok mate – Twenty quid!”

Cake

It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning as I stand at the bar, pen in hand and think about what I want to write in the wedding book. It’s been a good wedding party and it’s been really nice to see old friends again. It has reached a point though where I realise that all my friends present, save for one are part of a couple and discussion at different points of the evening has pondered around who will be next. For my own part, I arrived on my own and I will leave on my own. I’m starting to feel a bit like Bridget Jones with a penis as a sort of philosophical melancholy begins to envelope me, due in large part I don’t doubt, to the evening’s alcohol.

I’m feeling sentimental as the pen touches the paper. I don’t want to write a standard ‘hope you’ll both be happy together, best wishes’ type message. I start writing and the more I write, the more gushy I get and in my mind I am filling the page with a tender heartfelt message to one of my best friends and his beautiful new wife. In reality though, I can’t see a bloody thing as I don’t have my glasses with me. The lighting is dim and my handwriting as far as I can tell is reminiscent of that of a two year old just given his first set of crayons.

And then it’s the end of the party, the lights come on and I hug my friend and his wife goodbye. “Here, have some cake” she says, “we’ve got stacks of it”. I take 3 pieces, wrapped up in napkins – I’m bound to get the munchies on my way home. As I leave I walk past two people from the party, snogging in the doorway, which only serves to remind me that I’m going home to an empty flat and I’m spending the night alone.

The night is cool and crisp and I decide that a walk from Waterloo to The Embankment will lend itself to some much needed sobriety. As I walk I pass beneath the London Eye and look up at the structure, reflecting on how in approximately 30 minutes time I will view it again from my balcony as a distant part of the London cityscape. As I look skywards at this huge bicycle wheel on London’s south bank, my attention is caught by shouting just 50 or so metres from me. A petite girl is arguing with her much taller boyfriend it seems, who is in turn hanging his head and looking like a schoolboy who’s mother has just discovered his porn stash. I watch the scene in front of me unfold as she shouts and swears at him. She animatedly waves her arms and pushes him away from her before stomping off, leaving him to follow behind forlornly. Phew, I muse as I shake my head, at least I don’t have to put up with that sort of shit.

I get to Hungerford Bridge and walk up the stairs just in front of the Royal Festival Hall. A homeless man asks for change. I look at him and shrug my shoulders “Sorry mate” I say. “That’s ok, thanks for not ignoring me” he says. Suddenly I’m feeling guilty, but I can’t give him any money as I’ve already said that I have none and if I give him some now then he’ll know I was lying. “I’ve got some wedding cake – it’s not much, but at least it’s something to eat”. I hand him one of the three pieces of wrapped up wedding cake in my hand. “Oh thank you, cheers mate” he says, surprised. “Ah, don’t worry about it” I say, as I turn and carry on in the direction I was going.

I take in the view over the city and a sobriety begins to descend upon me. Giving the piece of cake to the homeless guy has lifted my mood as I carry on across the bridge, itself lightly scattered with an assortment of couples, party goers and drunken teens.

I get to the other end of the bridge and see a beautiful German Shepherd dog lying down and trying to get the attention of it’s owner – a homeless person who is sitting on the ground, slouched backwards and seems to be buried somewhere within a Parker coat. I look at the dog and the owner as I pass and get to the top of the stairs that lead down to The Embankment. I start to walk down before slowing as I pause on the fourth step and look back at the dog. There is something about the way it is nudging it’s owner that makes me walk back up the steps and over to whoever is inside the Parker. I tug the sleeve of the coat “Are you ok mate?” I say.

Two hands reach up and pull the hood of the coat back from the face of the person buried inside. It’s a thin man of about 60, with short grey hair and a light grey beard, who has a look of total surprise about him. “Are you ok?” I repeat. “Oh, hello, er...” he says. I’ve no idea how long he’s been there or what his circumstances are and maybe it’s my lightened mood or maybe it’s the sight of his dog, but I want to help him or do something of some sort. I look at him and his dog “Have you eaten anything?” I say “Look, I know it isn’t much, but er..”. I hand him the two remaining pieces of wedding cake “There, it’s wedding cake.” He looks at me but doesn’t say a word – the tears cascading down his face say enough as he puts an arm around his dog. “Look, it’s wedding cake!!” he says. “Thank you, thank you, God bless you!!” “It’s alright” I say as I turn and head down the stairs.

I hail the first black cab I can find and climb in the back. “Where to mate?” says the cabbie. “Wapping” I say as I look out of the window at drunken revellers in the cold and think of the old man and his dog. Then I think of my warm flat, my tea bags and the milk in my fridge and I smile inwardly. Suddenly I’m more content than I have been all night.

Tube Journey

It’s a Wednesday morning and I’m sitting on a tube train reading a book and with half an hour to go until I reach the office. The seat next to mine was the only free one on the carriage until a couple of minutes ago. However, the stature of the guy who has taken it has meant that his buttocks have been forced to make a claim for the seats either side of him too.

Both he and the woman to my right have claimed the arm rests either side of me. The only comfortable position for me therefore, is to lean forward with my elbows on my knees and read that way. I get to the end of my chapter and pause for a moment to take a look at the other passengers. There is a girl standing in front of me holding on to the overhead rail and to her right is a thick set guy with a shaved head and sporting a good four days worth of stubble. He’s got an angry Millwall fan look about him, although he also has the volume on his I-pod turned up and I can hear Mariah Carey singing Hero.

The girl in front of me brushes against my book and I ignore her. She brushes against it again and I inwardly seethe. I can’t sit back because the fat guy and the woman with the elbows are taking all the room. I catch the eye of a lady sitting opposite me who looks like Judi Dench. She sees the look on my face and gives me an empathetic smile before going back to her copy of Howards End. I turn the page as the girl standing in front of me brushes my book yet again. I look up just in time to see that she is falling backwards.

She collapses on the floor between me and the woman next to me with her back against the seat next to my right leg. She’s fainted, or at least I think she’s fainted, as her head tilts back against the seat and her eyes roll into the back of her head. And then there’s an awful noise coming from her mouth. It’s at this stage where everyone around me has a look of ‘is there a doctor in the house’ panic about them. I reach down and untie her scarf. “Undo her coat too” someone says, which I do. “Can someone hit the emergency alarm” I say. The message gets passed back through the carriage from person to person, like gossip spreading through an office “Can someone press the alarm ”, “press the alarm please”, “the guy says hit the alarm”. Someone hits the alarm.

Judi Dench puts her fingers to the girl’s neck to check her pulse. I put my hand in front of the girl’s nose and mouth to see if I can feel her breathing – I can. And then the girl tilts her head back further and her chest moves forward and in a split second I realise what is coming next as I pull my hand back. Judi Dench on the other hand doesn’t and catches the full force of the girl’s morning porridge, to the tune of a collective “Eeewww…” amongst the other passengers.

“I work for London Underground” says a guy, “it’s ok, the driver will know which carriage the alarm went off in and he’ll stop at the next station. Put her in position” People look at him blankly. “The recovery position!” he affirms. There’s a collective ‘Ah yes, of course’. By this time the girl is awake as she is put on her side. People talk to her reassuringly as we pull into the next station. After a couple of minutes the driver pops his head around the carriage door. “Everything alright?” he asks before realising that it clearly isn’t. His colleague is assertive “We need to call the LAS!” The driver looks blank. “LAS?” he asks. The London Ambulance Service!” says his colleague, increasingly frustrated that no one understands him.

After a little while the paramedics arrive and tend to the girl. The platform staff inform us that the tube isn’t going anywhere fast and to go to the opposite platform where another will take us to where we’re going. Judi Dench has been wiping herself down. I hand her an extra tissue and give her an empathetic ‘sorry it was you’ tight mouthed smile. She smiles back in a shoulder shrugging ‘what can you do’ sort of a way.

Checking my watch I realise that I’m now quite late for work and so text my boss to fill him in on the morning’s activities.

“Running a bit late. A woman has collapsed in front of me on the tube and vomited all over herself. The Ambulance is on it’s way but we’re not going anywhere fast.”

Well it’s not a bad thing if I turn up earlier than expected. A few minutes later my phone beeps.

“No worries, we all oversleep sometimes...”

Midweek Rendezvous - Part 2

It was a few days later, as I sat in the office and looked at my phone. Come on you idiot, just call her! I dialled her number and waited for the call to connect. It went straight to voicemail. Click. I hate leaving messages. Far better to spend half an hour drafting and re-drafting a simple text surely..!?

“Hey, hope you're well and had a great weekend. Are you free for dinner on Saturday night?”

The text sent, I got on with work. A series of back to back meetings during the afternoon had resulted in a pile of actions coming my way that were the result of someone else’s fuck up. My boss was receiving a lot of pressure from his boss and consequently had decided to put pressure on the rest of the team. The moment I started doing one thing, something else would happen and so on and so forth. By 5.30 I was tired and I’d had enough of the office and just wanted to go home.

Sitting on the tube on the way home, I felt like it was the first time that I had properly sat down all day. I had my nose in a book as I heard my phone beep. It was the beep I had been waiting all afternoon to hear, or so I thought: -

“Sorry, I don’t think we’re well suited. I did enjoy my night but I don’t want you 2 get false expectations. I wish you all the best. A.”

I stared at my phone – aghast. What the fuck..!!? I mean what? WHAT?? I was bewildered and didn’t know what to think. I stared at the message over and over. Had we been on different dates? My incredulity was gradually replaced with a sorrow and a sudden loneliness which was exacerbated by the stresses of the day. I looked up and noticed the number of couples who filled the tube carriage. Well there may only have been two or three couples and they may even only have been work colleagues for all I knew. But they stood out with a glow, like kids on a Ready Brek commercial, conspicuous by the warmth of being in a relationship – a warmth that I suddenly longed for more than ever.

I arrived home and made a cup of tea. My phone was lying on the kitchen counter as I glanced again at the message whilst stirring the cup. G phoned, asking how my date had gone the week before. I read her the text. “Oh well, put it behind you. On to the next one” she said, matter of fact. “Yep yep” I said, through gritted teeth, my eyes closed as I desperately tried to keep the lump in my throat under control. I ended the call and took a breath. Fuck it, I thought as I replied to the text: -

“Already had false expectations after you kissed me in the street for half an hour. Kind of wish you hadn’t now. My fault for misjudging”.

I hit the send key as I walked through to the lounge and tossed the phone onto the sofa. There, done! Time for a shower – what a fucking day, I thought as I stripped before opening the shower door just as my phone beeped. Get in the shower, ignore it! Which is why I went straight to the lounge and picked my phone up off the sofa: -

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to upset you. Please understand that things are not that black and white. I did enjoy kissing you – my heart says to see you but my logic says that things are not settled for me. Yes, maybe we shouldn’t have kissed. I’m sorry”

Bizarrely I started to feel a slight sense of guilt as the water from the shower cascaded over me. She had very mildly hinted during our date that she hadn’t had an easy breakup with her ex. She obviously wasn’t over the split and it seemed to be more of a timing issue than anything. I remembered my own experience of when I went through a very similar thing a few years ago. I considered my current sense of upset and realised that I had let self pity get in the way of clear thinking. I had to face facts. This relationship was looking like a non starter, not now at least. Surely there was something I could take away from it though? Whatever else had happened, I’d had a wonderful night out with a beautiful girl and we had spent what felt an age snogging like two teenagers. That wasn’t a bad memory for an evening out with someone I didn’t even know a fortnight earlier. I finished showering and texted her back.

“I’m sorry A. You’ve caught me at the end of a very long and not good day. I’ve been where you are now and know that it isn’t easy. I enjoyed kissing you and am glad we met as I thought you were adorable and I had a great night. That’s a good silver lining at least. Call me some time. Take care x”.

It’s not always easy to look for the silver lining in a given situation and sometimes I take a wobble when on the receiving end of a metaphorical punch in the face. But what’s the alternative? Well the alternative is to sink into a sort of morose bitterness that jades and makes one more cynical the next time someone shows an interest, and that’s not me. I’d had a wonderful evening and I wanted to remember it. My phone beeped.

“Thank you. I really appreciated your message. You are awesome. I will try to be in contact with you in time. Keep your go lively spirit. It’s wonderful to be around x”

Last year I needed to develop a thicker skin when it came to finding a job. Maybe my period away from the dating scene had meant that I needed to develop a thicker skin in other areas too. I had surprised myself at just how upset I had felt. But look, two weeks before our date I didn’t even know she existed. And that’s what I’m talking about. Life is so random that you never know who or what is just around the corner. For now though, it’s onwards and upwards. Let’s see what the next adventure has in store...