The High Commissioner of Singapore couldn’t come to the Baha’i Centre after all. His office called to say that there was a Singaporean government minister in town and that His Excellency couldn’t come round for tea today.

Ah well, it meant I could give more time to finishing my departmental budget for the next financial year. Whoopee!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Baha’i

“Are you all right?” A lady several steps higher up the escalator turned and looked anxiously down at me as I sprawled over several steps.

“I’m fine, thank you.” I smiled, pretending that it was nothing, pretendgin that my hands weren’t hurting from their contact with the sharp edges of the escalator steps, pretending that my shins weren’t in pain from being dashed against unforgiving metal, pretending that (and this was the worst of it) my pride was intact.

It had been such a good day up to then. Despite the queue at the station ticket office, I’d had time to get a large latt? from Brian in the deli he runs on platform 1. I’d made myself think benign thoughts about the mums and their half-term kids going off to London for the day to see Harrods. I’d even found a seat on the crowded train. What’s more, the train arrived just about on time at Kings Cross.

Full of energy, I bounded up the escalator from the platforms at the Harrods end of Knightsbridge tube station. About half way up, disaster. A mis-step, a foot not lifted high enough, and…

I smiled up at the concerned lady, picked myself up, and ran the rest of the way to the top of the escalator. Just to show I was in good shape, you understand, and to recover a smidgeon of my pride. Nothing wrong with this middle-aged man, I wanted to say. And to prove it, I strode from the escalator to the pavement and hoofed it to my office in the Baha’i Centre in about an hour and a quarter from home.

No, no, thank you. I don’t want your sympathy. I’m fine. It’s nothing that a few days’ bed rest wouldn’t cure - as if I had time for bed rest!

On the subject of half-term: how is it that no sooner than the kids have returned to school in September than it’s mid-October and they’re all out again, clogging up the trains and buses and pavements? Shouldn’t they be locked up somewhere? Kept at home? Put into camps?

I jest. Or do I…?

Technorati Tags: escalator, Harrods, Knightsbridge, Baha’i