A hard day's work

'Last year, one trip back home from Japan I found myself hurtling towards the centre of London on the Piccadilly Line.'

I'd love to say that without smirking. Instead,

'Last year, one trip back home from Japan I found myself on the Piccadilly Line, lurching towards the centre of London one pitiful, long-forgotten tube stop at a time.'

That's a little more truthful.

Way out near Heathrow airport, the Piccadilly Line gets grim. Last year when I came back, it was a drizzly, overcast day and I remember being squashed on the train with luggage and weary commuters, watching the rain dribble in diagonals across the windows.

This year I came back for good, for now. I fell into a job virtually instantly and it looks like they might want to keep me on beyond the initial trial period.

However. In a cruel twist of fate, a 'welcome back to england and fuck you!', a miserable deal, the job is way out west on the Piccadilly Line and I have become one of those weary commuters.

'Northfields?'

'Yeah Northfields.'

'OK, North-Fields?'

'That's it. Northfields'

(Almost a whisper:) 'Huh. Northfields.'

Every morning I now find myself backtracking nearly as far as the airport, and every evening I repeat that desolate journey into the centre of London that I swore I'd never again attempt. I wish that once (it would only take once), I could forget Northfields and just judder and grind on, one tube stop at a time beyond Northfields, save myself the commuter sigh, that plosive burst, the steady, lip-flubbering exhalation, save myself that and a day at a desk in front of a computer screen and the walk to the bathroom the most exercise I'd get all day, save all that for my memories of somewhere and someplace I almost ended up for good and shudder on as far as Heathrow, and get on a plane, and hop, skip, shoot out of Blighty again.

Not sure that'll be happening any time soon though.