vacuum packed

Flying around this week, with some early starts and late nights.

Along the way a languid evening meeting in a castle and a successful negotiation of the Brussels bus system. Then staying in a posh hotel that transformed itself overnight into a conference centre exhibiting bright orange tractor-sized cleaning systems for public spaces.

The hotel was very clean.

And the memorable and entirely genuine question from an over-travelled American colleague, who asked me which country we were in.

I had a chance to say, "It's Thursday, so it must be Belgium".

aspidistras, anyone?

What was I thinking yesterday? Staying in to watch shabbily constructed television? Writing an almost negative post? There must have been a temporary fault in my reality. Maybe its because I was abandoned yesterday evening whilst others took a sports car downtown for merriment.

Far more positively, alongside my lone rainy foot expedition to the Tandoori, through 90mph horizontal car-wash storms, I also completed a private project and have bundled it all off for its next stage in Germany. That's alongside the work project which is in its last stages too.

I also somehow clocked another couple of chapters for "The Square", although it seems to be accomplished in rather small units of time this year. Not quite Gordon Comstock, but parts of it have appeared whilst hanging around at bus-stops. The last piece I wrote featured the upper deck of a 137, so it is all getting a little weird.

I'll figure out how to knit it together. Once I've found a use for the secret underground elevator.

i am welcomed back with tube, bus and road closures

Saturday's early morning cocktails supported overwhelming logic to stay at the Sanderson rather than crosstowning with limited direction finding faculties. The room was all a bit Philipe Starck, white box, stainless steel, electric voile curtains, deliberately offset bed and strange workout devices augmented with a ceiling landscape picture.

By proper morning the inadvertent jaunt to Berners Street seemed entirely logical, as did the very late breakfast considerately served until 11:30.

Then outside into everchanging London streets. Nearby Oxford Circus tube's big gates were pulled shut. Oxford Street had its usual roadworks. The easy 137 bus route to Sloane Square was cancelled because "A Night at The Museum 2" was sponsoring a pedestrian only day for the entire length of the shopping area.

Our simple resourcefulness found another route, but I feel sorry for the confused tourists arguing with the shouty man in the yellow jacket at the myriad non functioning bus stops.

I smiled to myself about this place called London.

hotel lobby

my late brunch somehow shortened the day

Glancing back over the last few weeks of blogging, I noticed how many of the pictures were taken in the evening or night time. It's almost like hibernation since early December.

Then a couple of days ago I noticed the sun (or at least rain) beginning to creep back into the pictures.

A good sign. I shall need to start looking for snowdrops and daffodils now, although its already too dark this evening.