Tuesday 11 June 2019

I Work In The Cold

It's unseasonably cold and wet. You don't need me to tell you that, unless you live somewhere else. The rain came down and the floods went up today, and I got my feet and trousers wet on the way from the station because firstly I left my umbrella at the side of a marquee on Saturday, and because secondly the water was coming up from the pavement as well as down from the skies.

The renovations happening in my part of the building at work seem to necessitate the door to the outside being left open. I suppose this is for convenience. Also, the heating isn't on, which is good because it's June, and not good because it's nothing like an averagely warm June, and someone's leaving the door wedged open.

I sat down at my desk, damp. I got on with the sedentary nature of administration, marking, answering enquiries. A slow day, a misplaced day which should have been spent on a trip to the International Slavery Museum on the waterfront in Liverpool according to another plan which I'm glad, in the end, didn't come off.  There's a best-not-experienced quality of cold on the dockside in Liverpool when the wind whips off the Mersey and the rain comes along with it.

You can't make an omelette without cracking eggs. They can't renovate a building without leaving the door open, ripping up floors, making dust and pulling down the ceiling. I can't always stop the cold from creeping in, taking hold of my hands.

But I can go home, run an early bath, get into my pyjamas and heat a bowl of soup, as if it were already November.

No comments:

Post a Comment