Day tripper

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so I did my commute at 10.30 instead 0f 8.30. And I found out that in those two short hours, London is rinsed an entirely different colour.

On the train, instead of sitting opposite someone in a grey Next suit who is robotically applying concealer or reading A Thousand Splendid Suns or listening to Mika on an Ipod Mini (if the Enigma code was comprised of tinny headphone emissions, I would be the Bletchley Park poster girl), I sat opposite an elderly couple, both dapper in their his-and-hers Burberry overcoats. She maintained excellent posture while he read a small text book on Mechanics (maths, not cars) and laboured with paper and pencil over a lengthy equation that outran my 15-years-distant maths A-level. When they got off at Charing Cross, he carried her British Museum shopper for her as they walked out of the station arm-in-arm, beaming.

I walked through Trafalgar Square, where, on any other day, I think the world is spinning off its axis if I see a pigeon with a leg missing. Today Keith Chegwin was excitedly interviewing (does he interview in any other style?) a gaggle of thirtysomething women. Cheggars is very grey these days, but has a super-nice overcoat.

Then I walked past the church on Wardour Street which smells of piss at 8.30am. At 10.30 it does not smell of piss, and a group of beginners were receiving instruction in t'ai chi on the grass outside. 

For an hour I felt like I was in a film that makes living in London look full of warmth and wonder. But at no point was my path crossed by Hugh Grant in bermuda shorts, and soon I was at my desk with my usual cup of tea, watching the rain clouds gather, and normality crowding back in.