Summer recedes

I welcomed the warmer weather a couple of posts ago. That was merely the prelude to days of rain and coolness. There have been flash floods all round the country - we had plenty of downpour in beautiful Ruislip but fortunately it didn't hang around (though living on the side of hill definitely has its advantages). I had hoped that the trains would revert to the half-empty state of past summers but each morning they cancel one or two on the Met just before mine arrives so they are as crowded as ever. However the rain does not appear to have affected the service levels which have actually been pretty good in recent weeks.

I have to admit that as I move closer to standing down from my job and taking a back seat at work, the prospect of not having to get up each day in order to sit on a train for nearly an hour becomes brighter and brighter. One can endure commuting and learn to adapt to it but does one ever enjoy it? Reading books on paper or on screen, or listening to radio comedy can make the time pass but there is always the feeling that these activities would be so much more pleasurable if one was not being jolted back and forth, weaving one's body to avoid one's fellow travellers as they jostle past and not having the endless announcements running in the background. And behind that is the pressure of working fixed hours, the need to wake up regardless of how well one has slept, the need to leave the house no matter how grim the weather or how disrupted the trains.

So it does seem that these ramblings will become less fixated on the Tube and will either transmogrify [does putting this word in win a bet or something?: Ed] into a more general commentary on early 21st century living in London or will gently fade into the middle distance. Let us await developments.