Kick those white mice and baboons out

On the metropolitan line the seats in the train face forwards (or backwards), rather than sideways. There is heat under the seats keeping the backs of your legs warm. As you head south towards Baker Street there is a section that takes you overground. To the right is a block of flats with balconies, balconies overflowing with bikes and plants, one balcony has old mattresses filling its space. Another has suitcases being rained on. Is there no room for suitcases in that flat? Maybe these suitcases belong to guests? Maybe they’ve said to their guests, ‘ there’s no room for your stuff here. We told you to travel light. And if you think you’re keeping your toothbrush with ours, forget it you un-hygienic baboons. It belongs out on the balcony with the rest of your stuff’.

I’m getting ready for my holiday. Not that I’ll need a suitcase to visit my own flat, but I’m looking forward to the time off. Just a few work obstacles to get out the way; a meeting with the Client, a page to update, stuff to send, then I can lie in a hammock between two trees and spend my days reading in the sunshine.

You don’t have a garden, let alone two trees. And sunshine? The clocks have gone forward and its due to snow again. Oh go away, voice of reason. The voice of reason is also persuading me I need to ring the council to ask where my parking permit has got to, but I’m resisting. Resisting having to ring up automated answering services or people who can’t help me at all but will helpfully put me through to someone else who has even less of a clue than they do.

All they need to do is send a parking permit, two trees and a hammock. I’ve got the books lined up.

Keeps you walking

Strange days have found us. Last week I got a lift to work and we passed a short bald man in tight colourful clothes running in the road with his two dogs. Ten minutes later we saw him up ahead again, charging up the road his dogs beside him. Today a man dressed for summer in shorts and sandals gets off the tube, presumably to start his holidays somewhere in the grime.

Saturday saw me and my friend David's joint 40th birthday party, at a pub called Filthy McNasty's in Angel. I never get the hang of who to invite and kept the invites mainly to people in London, figuring no-one would want to come from outside. Being older seems a strange thing to celebrate. It was good fun though, a good mix of people, and the best thing is I'm still only 39.

Today was payday and hopefully I'm going to clear my overdraft this time round. We shall see. I want to run to the record and book shops and buy myself endless gifts, but I do sensible things, such as buying gas, and topping up my oyster card. Someone said it's all about the money but that ain't true. When it's all about the money so much gets lost.

Tonight I'm sitting in, writing this, listening to the Go Betweens and wondering how something can be as good as 'Boundary Rider'. Songs like that make it all worthwhile.

Gorilla

As I pass the school on Highbury Barn I notice amongst the kids running round and shouting, a young boy lying on the grass, between two trees. I slow down to check he's ok. He's deep in thought staring upwards. The grass isn't real, it's bright and fluffy.

I'm wearing a ruck-sack, both straps over my shoulders, which I suspect makes me look like a tourist. The bag contains birthday presents and a book, 'Just Kids' by Patti Smith, about her and Robert Maplethorpe living in New York City in the 70's, struggling to establish themselves as artists. That book's the only luxury I afforded myself this month. Last month the only luxury I bought was a big red plastic tomato for storing tomato sauce. By the end of the month I was starting to regret it. When I looked in my food cupboards to find the cupboards bare except a big red plastic tomato, I was not happy with my choices. I was ready to blame that big red tomato for everything.

Tracy's birthday so we go to the zoo. It's a cold day and the meercats are hiding away in their hidey-holes. The pelicans are either standing upright or shrunk down, burying their heads into their feathers. The pancake stall is shut. Curse you big red tomato. The big tiger is asleep. The smaller tiger is by the glass and we peer in at him, but he's uninterested. The penguins are ready to perform, waddling to the water before jumping in for a swim. Underwater they look like big fish. The butterfly area housed in a tent shaped as a caterpillar is a refuge from the cold. The butterflies fly around us and sometimes onto us. An old volunteer guy shows me the pupas where the butterflies hatch.

My favourite part of the zoo is the gorilla house. They just make you laugh, the way they slope along nonchalantly, scratching themselves and munching on food. The younger gorilla perches himself on a branch, his arms folded, as if to say: "I ain't performing for anyone." The older gorilla upturns a plastic basket and sits on it staring out the glass at us. He has a really sad look on his face as we peer curiously in.

Don't worry about it Gorilla. You could have evolved and now be spending your time blaming everything on a big red tomato.

On a clear day

Clear days have found us and I'm out from the fog of work and away from the Smoke for a few days at least. I head North, staying in Wirral - the Leisure Peninsula. On a clear day you can see Liverpool from here. Friday we hit the mainland and I meet up with friends from my old work at lunch and later go to the Everyman to meet other, non-work friends. The pubs are full of people I know. Most people don't seem to know I moved away.

"I haven't seen you for ages," they say.

"Well, I don't get out much these days."

After a heavy Friday night we stick to, well, the sticks. We walk five miles to a lighthouse. Later we decide it was more like ten miles. By Sunday it's twenty-six miles. Sunday roast at the Magazines is delicious. There's a guy sat at the table next to ours, with his wife. He reads damning articles about popular culture and sport in a loud abhorrent voice. His wife looks uncomfortable. "Am I talking to myself," he says at some point, before mentioning a festival, he's clearly 20 years too old and cynical to attend, and exclaiming that there's no bands worth seeing. Boy, I hope I'm not turning into this guy.

Back in that London everybody looks hostile on the tube. At the flat it takes ages to warm up. Work is a million soul destroying tasks, the bank account is empty and you wonder what it's all for.