How things used to be

It’s the Tuesday before Christmas, and we’ve arrived at London Bridge just a few minutes late. Which as our conductor has kindly pointed out is rather good in the current icy circumstances. And indeed it is. It’s been a good journey: a double seat all the way, my companions suitably silent, my carriage warm. And, as my last 7.42 of the year, a good way to end.

As you can see, then, my grumpiness has passed and I’m in tune once again with my surroundings. Even a longer than usual delay on my way to London would have been easy to cope with, and perspective – that curer of some ills and not of others – would have done its work. Because now I have other things to worry about: namely, a flight to New Zealand tomorrow (my first flight in years, actually) which, from my point in time, looks distinctly dodgy.

From your point in time, of course, this will all be history, and my worries will be last year’s problems. My cry for help will be purely rhetorical, and any sympathy I do elicit will be obsolete (but thank you anyway).

Such a clashing of one point in time against another is not a state of affairs we have to get our heads around very often any more. It’s a reminder, for me at least, of another century and a time of real letters: questions asked and forgotten before the answers had a time to form, and worries aired and then long gone by the time commiseration arrives. So perhaps consider this column just a remnant of last year’s postbag and an interesting reminder of how things used to be.